Authors: Zane Grey
Slone fell. He knew he had been shot. Following the rending of his flesh came a hot agony. It was in his shoulder, high up, and the dark, swift fear for his life was checked.
Lucy stood staring down at him, unable to comprehend, slowly paling. Her hands clasped the coat round her. Slone saw her, saw the edge of streaming clouds of smoke above her, saw on the cliff beyond the gorge two men, one with a smoking gun half leveled.
If Slone had been inattentive to his surroundings before, the sight of Cordts electrified him.
"Lucy! drop down! quick!"
"Oh, what's happened? You--you--"
"I've been shot. Drop down, I tell you. Get behind the horse an' pull my rifle."
"Shot!" exclaimed Lucy, blankly.
"Yes--Yes. . . . My God! Lucy, he's goin' to shoot again!"
It was then Lucy Bostil saw Cordts across the gulch. He was not fifty yards distant, plainly recognizable, tall, gaunt, sardonic. He held the half-leveled gun ready as if waiting. He had waited there in ambush. The clouds of smoke rolled up above him, hiding the crags.
"CORDTS!" Bostil's blood spoke in the girl's thrilling cry.
"Hunch down, Lucy!" cried Slone. "Pull my rifle. . . . I'm only winged--not hurt. Hurry! He's goin'--"
Another heavy report interrupted Slone. The bullet missed, but Slone made a pretense, a convulsive flop, as if struck.
"Get the rifle! Quick!" he called.
But Lucy misunderstood his ruse to deceive Cordts. She thought he had been hit again. She ran to the fallen Wildfire and jerked the rifle from its sheath.
Cordts had begun to climb round a ledge, evidently a short cut to get down and across. Hutchinson saw the rifle and yelled to Cordts. The horse-thief halted, his dark face gleaming toward Lucy.
When Lucy rose the coat fell from her nude shoulders. And Slone, watching, suddenly lost his agony of terror for her and uttered a pealing cry of defiance and of rapture.
She swept up the rifle. It wavered. Hutchinson was above, and Cordts, reaching up, yelled for help. Hutchinson was reluctant. But the stronger force dominated. He leaned down--clasped Cordts's outstretched hands, and pulled. Hutchinson bawled out hoarsely. Cordts turned what seemed a paler face. He had difficulty on the slight footing. He was slow.
Slone tried to call to Lucy to shoot low, but his lips had drawn tight after his one yell. Slone saw her white, rounded shoulders bent, with cold, white face pressed against the rifle, with slim arms quivering and growing tense, with the tangled golden hair blowing out.
Then she shot.
Slone's glance shifted. He did not see the bullet strike up dust. The figures of the men remained the same--Hutchinson straining, Cordts. . . . No, Cordts was not the same! A strange change seemed manifest in his long form. It did not seem instinct with effort. Yet it moved.
Hutchinson also was acting strangely, yelling, heaving, wrestling. But he could not help Cordts. He lifted violently, raised Cordts a little, and then appeared to be in peril of losing his balance.
Cordts leaned against the cliff. Then it dawned upon Slone that Lucy had hit the horse-thief. Hard hit! He would not--he could not let go of Hutchinson. His was a death clutch. The burly Hutchinson slipped from his knee-hold, and as he moved Cordts swayed, his feet left the ledge, he hung, upheld only by the tottering comrade.
What a harsh and terrible cry from Hutchinson! He made one last convulsive effort and it doomed him. Slowly he lost his balance. Cordts's dark, evil, haunting face swung round. Both men became lax and plunged, and separated. The dust rose from the rough steps. Then the dark forms shot down--Cordts falling sheer and straight, Hutchinson headlong, with waving arms--down and down, vanishing in the depths. No sound came up. A little column of yellow dust curled from the fatal ledge and, catching the wind above, streamed away into the drifting clouds of smoke.
CHAPTER XX
A darkness, like the streaming clouds overhead, seemed to blot out Slone's sight, and then passed away, leaving it clearer.
Lucy was bending over him, binding a scarf round his shoulder and under his arm. "Lin! It's nothing!" she was saying, earnestly. "Never touched a bone!"
Slone sat up. The smoke was clearing away. Little curves of burning grass were working down along the rim. He put out a hand to grasp Lucy, remembering in a flash. He pointed to the ledge across the chasm.
"They're--gone!" cried Lucy, with a strange and deep note in her voice. She shook violently. But she did not look away from Slone.
"Wildfire! The King!" he added, hoarsely.
"Both where they dropped. Oh, I'm afraid to--to look. . . . And, Lin, I saw Sarch, Two Face, and Ben and Plume go down there."
She had her back to the chasm where the trail led down, and she pointed without looking.
Slone got up, a little unsteady on his feet and conscious of a dull pain.
"Sarch will go straight home, and the others will follow him," said Lucy. "They got away here where Joel came up the trail. The fire chased them out of the woods. Sarch will go home. And that'll fetch the riders."
"We won't need them if only Wildfire and the King--" Slone broke off and grimly, with a catch in his breath, turned to the horses.
How strange that Slone should run toward the King while Lucy ran to Wildfire!
Sage King was a beaten, broken horse, but he would live to run another race.
Lucy was kneeling beside Wildfire, sobbing and crying: "Wildfire! Wildfire!"
All of Wildfire was white except where he was red, and that red was not now his glossy, flaming skin. A terrible muscular convulsion as of internal collapse grew slower and slower. Yet choked, blinded, dying, killed on his feet, Wildfire heard Lucy's voice.
"Oh, Lin! Oh, Lin!" moaned Lucy.
While they knelt there the violent convulsions changed to slow heaves.
"He run the King down--carryin' weight--with a long lead to overcome!" Slone muttered, and he put a shaking hand on the horse's wet neck.
"Oh, he beat the King!" cried Lucy. "But you mustn't--you CAN'T tell Dad!"
"What CAN we tell him?"
"Oh, I know. Old Creech told me what to say!"
A change, both of body and spirit, seemed to pass over the great stallion.
"WILDFIRE! WILDFIRE!"
Again the rider called to his horse, with a low and piercing cry. But Wildfire did not hear.
The morning sun glanced brightly over the rippling sage which rolled away from the Ford like a gray sea.
Bostil sat on his porch, a stricken man. He faced the blue haze of the north, where days before all that he had loved had vanished. Every day, from sunrise till sunset, he had been there, waiting and watching. His riders were grouped near him, silent, awed by his agony, awaiting orders that never came.
From behind a ridge puffed up a thin cloud of dust. Bostil saw it and gave a start. Above the sage appeared a bobbing, black object --the head of a horse. Then the big black body followed.
"Sarch!" exclaimed Bostil.
With spurs clinking the riders ran and trooped behind him.
"More hosses back," said Holley, quietly.
"Thar's Plume!" exclaimed Farlane.
"An' Two Face!" added Van.
"Dusty Ben!" said another.
"RIDERLESS!" finished Bostil.
Then all were intensely quiet, watching the racers come trotting in single file down the ridge. Sarchedon's shrill neigh, like a whistle-blast, pealed in from the sage. From, fields and corrals clamored the answer attended by the clattering of hundreds of hoofs.
Sarchedon and his followers broke from trot to canter--canter to gallop--and soon were cracking their hard hoofs on the stony court. Like a swarm of bees the riders swooped down upon the racers, caught them, and led them up to Bostil.
On Sarchedon's neck showed a dry, dust-caked stain of reddish tinge. Holley, the old hawk-eyed rider, had precedence in the examination.
"Wal, thet's a bullet-mark, plain as day," said Holley.
"Who shot him?" demanded Bostil.
Holley shook his gray head.
"He smells of smoke," put in Farlane, who had knelt at the black's legs. "He's been runnin' fire. See thet! Fetlocks all singed!"
All the riders looked, and then with grave, questioning eyes at one another.
"Reckon thar's been hell!" muttered Holley, darkly.
Some of the riders led the horses away toward the corrals. Bostil wheeled to face the north again. His brow was lowering; his cheek was pale and sunken; his jaw was set.
The riders came and went, but Bostil kept his vigil. The hours passed. Afternoon came and wore on. The sun lost its brightness and burned red.
Again dust-clouds, now like reddened smoke, puffed over the ridge. A horse carrying a dark, thick figure appeared above the sage.
Bostil leaped up. "Is thet a gray hoss--or am--I blind?" he called, unsteadily.
The riders dared not answer. They must be sure. They gazed through narrow slits of eyelids; and the silence grew intense.
Holley shaded the hawk eyes with his hand. "Gray he is--Bostil--gray as the sage. . . . AN' SO HELP ME GOD IF HE AIN'T THE KING!"
"Yes, it's the King!" cried the riders, excitedly. "Sure! I reckon! No mistake about thet! It's the King!"
Bostil shook his huge frame, and he rubbed his eyes as if they had become dim, and he stared again.
"Who's thet up on him?"
"Slone. I never seen his like on a hoss," replied Holley.
"An' what's--he packin'?" queried Bostil, huskily.
Plain to all keen eyes was the glint of Lucy Bostil's golden hair. But only Holley had courage to speak.
"It's Lucy! I seen thet long ago."
A strange, fleeting light of joy died out of Bostil's face. The change once more silenced his riders. They watched the King trotting in from the sage. His head drooped. He seemed grayer than ever and he limped. But he was Sage King, splendid as of old, all the more gladdening to the riders' eyes because he had been lost. He came on, quickening a little to the clamoring welcome from the corrals.
Holley put out a swift hand. "Bostil--the girl's alive--she's smilin'!" he called, and the cool voice was strangely different.
The riders waited for Bostil. Slone rode into the courtyard. He was white and weary, reeling in the saddle. A bloody scarf was bound round his shoulder. He held Lucy in his arms. She had on his coat. A wan smile lighted her haggard face.
Bostil, cursing deep, like muttering thunder, strode out. "Lucy! You ain't bad hurt?" he implored, in a voice no one had ever heard before.
"I'm--all right--Dad," she said, and slipped down into his arms.
He kissed the pale face and held her up like a child, and then, carrying her to the door of the house, he roared for Aunt Jane.
When he reappeared the crowd of riders scattered from around Slone. But it seemed that Bostil saw only the King. The horse was caked with dusty lather, scratched and disheveled, weary and broken, yet he was still beautiful. He raised his drooping head and reached for his master with a look as soft and dark and eloquent as a woman's.
No rider there but felt Bostil's passion of doubt and hope. Had the King been beaten? Bostil's glory and pride were battling with love. Mighty as that was, it did not at once overcome his fear of defeat.
Slowly the gaze of Bostil moved away from Sage King and roved out to the sage and back, as if he expected to see another horse. But no other horse was in sight. At last his hard eyes rested upon the white-faced Slone.
"Been some--hard ridin'?" he queried, haltingly. All there knew that had not been the question upon his lips.
"Pretty hard--yes," replied Slone. He was weary, yet tight-lipped, intense.
"Now--them Creeches?" slowly continued Bostil.
"Dead."
A murmur ran through the listening riders, and they drew closer.
"Both of them?"
"Yes. Joel killed his father, fightin' to get Lucy. . . . An' I ran--Wildfire over Joel--smashed him!"
"Wal, I'm sorry for the old man," replied Bostil, gruffly. "I meant to make up to him. . . . But thet fool boy! . . . An' Slone--you're all bloody."
He stepped forward and pulled the scarf aside. He was curious and kindly, as if it was beyond him to be otherwise. Yet that dark cold something, almost sullen clung round him.
"Been bored, eh? Wal, it ain't low, an' thet's good. Who shot you?"
"Cordts."
"CORDTS!" Bostil leaned forward in sudden, fierce eagerness.
"Yes, Cordts. . . . His outfit run across Creech's trail an' we bunched. I can't tell now. . . . But we had--hell! An' Cordts is dead--so's Hutch--an' that other pard of his. . . . Bostil, they'll never haunt your sleep again!"
Slone finished with a strange sternness that seemed almost bitter.
Bostil raised both his huge fists. The blood was bulging his thick neck. It was another kind of passion that obsessed him. Only some violent check to his emotion prevented him from embracing Slone. The huge fists unclenched and the big fingers worked.