Wildfire and the Heritage of the Desert (6 page)

“Are you lookin' fer me?” he shouted.

Lucy waved a hand for him to come up.

Then he approached. He was a tall, lean young man, stoop-shouldered and bow-legged from much riding, with sallow, freckled face, a thin fuzz of beard, weak mouth and chin, and eyes remarkable for their small size and piercing quality and different color. For one was gray and the other was hazel. There was no scar on his face, but the irregularity of his features reminded one who knew that he had once been kicked in the face by a horse.

Creech came up hurriedly, in an eager, wild way that made Lucy suddenly pity him. He did not seem to remember that the stallion had an antipathy for him. But Lucy, if she had forgotten, would have been reminded by Sarchedon's action.

“Look out, Joel!” she called, and she gave the black's head a jerk. Sarchedon went up with a snort and came down pounding the sand. Quick as lightning Lucy was out of the saddle.

“Lemme your quirt,” said Joel, showing his teeth like a wolf.

“No. I wouldn't let you hit Sarch. You beat him once, and he's never forgotten,” replied Lucy.

The eye of the horse and the man met and clashed, and there was a hostile tension in their attitudes. Then Lucy dropped the bridle and drew Joel over to a huge drift-log, half buried in the sand. Here she sat down, but Joel remained standing. His gaze was now all the stranger for its wistfulness. Lucy was quick to catch a subtle difference in him, but she could not tell wherein it lay.

“What'd you want?” asked Joel.

“I've heard a lot of things, Joel,” replied Lucy, trying to think of just what she wanted to say.

“Reckon you have,” said Joel, dejectedly, and then he sat down on the log and dug holes in the sand with his bare feet.

Lucy had never before seen him look tired, and it seemed that some of the healthy brown of his cheeks had thinned out. Then Lucy told him, guardedly, a few of the rumors she had heard.

“All thet you say is nothin' to what's happened,” he replied bitterly. “Them riders mocked the life an' soul out of me.”

“But, Joel, you shouldn't be so—so touchy,” said Lucy, earnestly. “After all, the joke
was
on you. Why didn't you take it like a man?”

“But they knew you stole my clothes,” he protested.

“Suppose they did. That wasn't much to care about. If you hadn't taken it so hard they'd have let up on you.”

“Mebbe I might have stood that. But they taunted me with bein'—loony about you.”

Joel spoke huskily. There was no doubt that he had been deeply hurt. Lucy saw tears in his eyes, and her first impulse was to put a hand on his and tell him how sorry she was. But she desisted. She did not feel at her ease with Joel.

“What'd you and Van fight about?” she asked, presently.

Joel hung his head. “I reckon I ain't a-goin' to tell you.”

“You're ashamed of it?”

Joel's silence answered that.

“You said something about me?” Lucy could not resist her curiosity, back of which was a little heat. “It must have been—bad—else Van wouldn't have struck you.”

“He hit me—he knocked me flat,” passionately said Joel.

“And you drew a gun on him?”

“I did, an' like a fool I didn't wait till I got up. Then he kicked me!… Bostil's Ford will never be big enough fer me an' Van now.”

“Don't talk foolish. You won't fight with Van.… Joel, maybe you deserved what you got. You say some—some rude things.”

“I only said I'd pay you back,” burst out Joel.

“How?”

“I swore I'd lay fer you—an' steal your clothes—so you'd have to run home naked.”

There was indeed something lacking in Joel, but it was not sincerity. His hurt had rankled deep and his voice trembled with indignation.

“But, Joel, I don't go swimming in spring-holes,” protested Lucy, divided between amusement and annoyance.

“I meant it, anyhow,” said Joel doggedly.

“Are you absolutely honest? Is that all you said to provoke Van?”

“It's all, Lucy, I swear.”

She believed him, and saw the unfortunate circumstance more than ever her fault. “I'm sorry, Joel. I'm much to blame. I shouldn't have lost my temper and played that trick with your clothes.… If you'd only had sense enough to stay out till after dark! But no use crying over spilt milk. Now, if you'll do your share I'll do mine. I'll tell the boys I was to blame. I'll persuade them to let you alone. I'll go to Muncie—”

“No you won't go cryin' small fer me!” blurted out Joel.

Lucy was surprised to see pride in him. “Joel, I'll not make it appear—”

“You'll not say one word about me to anyone,” he went on, with the blood beginning to darken his face. And now he faced her. How strange the blaze in his differently colored eyes! “Lucy Bostil, there's been thet done an' said to me which I'll never forgive. I'm no good in Bostil's Ford. Mebbe I never was much. But I could get a job when I wanted it an' credit when I needed it. Now I can't get nothin'. I'm no good!… I'm no good! An' it's your fault!”

“Oh, Joel, what can I do?” cried Lucy.

“I reckon there's only one way you can square me,” he replied, suddenly growing pale. But his eyes were like flint. He certainly looked to be in possession of all his wits.

“How?” queried Lucy, sharply.

“You can marry me. Thet'll show thet gang! An' it'll square me. Then I'll go back to work an' I'll stick. Thet's all, Lucy Bostil.”

Manifestly he was laboring under strong suppressed agitation. That moment was the last of real strength and dignity ever shown by Joel Creech.

“But, Joel, I can't marry you—even if I am to blame for your ruin,” said Lucy, simply.

“Why?”

“Because I don't love you.”

“I reckon thet won't make any difference, if you don't love someone else.”

Lucy gazed blankly at him. He began to shake, and his eyes grew wild. She rose from the log.

“Do you love anybody else?” he asked, passionately.

“None of your business!” retorted Lucy. Then, at a strange darkening of his face, an aspect unfamiliar to her, she grew suddenly frightened.

“It's Van!” he said, thickly.

“Joel, you're a fool!”

That only infuriated him.

“So they all say. An' they got my old man believin' it, too. Mebbe I am.… But I'm a-goin' to kill Van!”

“No! No! Joel, what are you saying? I don't love Van. I don't care any more for him than for any other rider—or—or you.”

“Thet's a lie, Lucy Bostil!”

“How dare you say I lie?” demanded Lucy. “I've a mind to turn my back on you. I'm trying to make up for my blunder and you—you insult me!”

“You talk sweet … but talk isn't enough. You made me no-good.… Will you marry me?”

“I will not!” And Lucy, with her blood up, could not keep contempt out of voice and look, and she did not care. That was the first time she had ever shown anything approaching ridicule for Joel. The effect was remarkable. Like a lash upon a raw wound it made him writhe; but more significant to Lucy was the sudden convulsive working of his features and the wildness of his eyes. Then she turned her back, not from contempt, but to hurry away from him.

He leaped after her and grasped her with rude hands.

“Let me go!” cried Lucy, standing perfectly motionless. The hard clutch of his fingers roused a fierce, hot anger.

Joel did not heed her command. He was forcing her back. He talked incoherently. One glimpse of his face added terror to Lucy's fury.

“Joel, you're out of your head!” she cried, and she began to wrench and writhe out of his grasp. Then ensued a short, sharp struggle. Joel could not hold Lucy, but he tore her blouse into shreds. It seemed to Lucy that he did that savagely. She broke free from him, and he lunged at her again. With all her strength she lashed his face with the heavy leather quirt. That staggered him. He almost fell.

Lucy bounded to Sarchedon. In a flash she was up in the saddle. Joel was running toward her. Blood on his face! Blood on his hands! He was not the Joel Creech she knew.

“Stop!” cried Lucy, fiercely. “I'll run you down!”

The big black plunged at a touch of spur and came down quivering, ready to bolt.

Creech swerved to one side. His face was lividly white except where the bloody welts crossed it. His jaw seemed to hang loosely, making speech difficult.

“Jest fer—thet—” he panted, hoarsely, “I'll lay fer you—an' I'll strip you—an' I'll tie you on a hoss—an' I'll drive you naked through Bostil's Ford!”

Lucy saw the utter futility of all her good intentions. Something had snapped in Joel Creech's mind. And in hers kindness had given precedence to a fury she did not know was in her. For the second time she touched a spur to Sarchedon. He leaped out, flashed past Creech, and thundered up the road. It was all Lucy could do to break his gait at the first steep rise.

 

CHAPTER IV

 

Three wild-horse hunters made camp one night beside a little stream in the Sevier Valley, five hundred miles, as a crow flies, from Bostil's Ford.

These hunters had a poor outfit, excepting, of course, their horses. They were young men, rangy in build, lean and hard from life in the saddle, bronzed like Indians, still-faced, and keen-eyed. Two of them appeared to be tired out, and lagged at the camp-fire duties. When the meager meal was prepared they sat, cross-legged, before a ragged tarpaulin, eating and drinking in silence.

The sky in the west was rosy, slowly darkening. The valley floor billowed away, ridged and cut, growing gray and purple and dark. Walls of stone, pink with the last rays of the setting sun, inclosed the valley, stretching away toward a long, low, black mountain range.

The place was wild, beautiful, open, with something nameless that made the desert different from any other country. It was, perhaps, a loneliness of vast stretches of valley and stone, clear to the eye, even after sunset. That black mountain range, which looked close enough to ride to before dark, was a hundred miles distant.

The shades of night fell swiftly, and it was dark by the time the hunters finished the meal. Then the camp-fire had burned low. One of the three dragged branches of dead cedars and replenished the fire. Quickly it flared up, with the white flame and crackle characteristic of dry cedar. The night wind had risen, moaning through the gnarled, stunted cedars nearby, and it blew the fragrant wood-smoke into the faces of the two hunters, who seemed too tired to move.

“I reckon a pipe would help me make up my mind,” said one.

“Wal, Bill,” replied the other, dryly, “your mind's made up, else you'd not say smoke.”

“Why?”

“Because there ain't three pipefuls of thet precious tobacco left.”

“Thet's one apiece, then … Lin, come an' smoke the last pipe with us.”

The tallest of the three, he who had brought the firewood, stood in the bright light of the blaze. He looked the born rider, light, lithe, powerful.

“Sure, I'll smoke,” he replied.

Then, presently, he accepted the pipe tendered him, and, sitting down beside the fire, he composed himself to the enjoyment which his companions evidently considered worthy of a decision they had reached.

“So this smokin' means you both want to turn back?” queried Lin, his sharp gaze glancing darkly bright in the glow of the fire.

“Yep, we'll turn back. An', Lordy! The relief I feel!” replied one.

“We've been long comin' to it, Lin, an' thet was for your sake,” replied the other.

Lin slowly pulled at his pipe and blew out the smoke as if reluctant to part with it. “Let's go on,” he said, quietly.

“No. I've had all I want of chasin' thet damn wild stallion,” returned Bill, shortly.

The other spread wide his hands and bent an expostulating look upon the one called Lin. “We're two hundred miles out,” he said. “There's only a little flour left in the bag. No coffee! Only a little salt! All the hosses except your big Nagger are played out. We're already in strange country. An' you know what we've heerd of this an' all to the south. It's all cañons, an' somewheres down there is thet awful cañon none of our people ever seen. But we've heerd of it. An awful cut-up country.”

He finished with a conviction that no one could say a word against the common sense of his argument. Lin was silent, as if impressed.

Bill raised a strong, lean, brown hand in a forcible gesture. “We can't ketch Wildfire!”

That seemed to him, evidently, a more convincing argument than his comrade's.

“Bill is sure right, if I'm wrong, which I ain't,” went on the other. “Lin, we've trailed thet wild stallion for six weeks. Thet's the longest chase he ever had. He's left his old range. He's cut out his band, an' left them, one by one. We've tried every trick we know on him. An' he's too smart for us. There's a hoss! Why, Lin, we're all but gone to the dogs chasin' Wildfire. An' now I'm done, an' I'm glad of it.”

There was another short silence, which presently Bill opened his lips to break.

“Lin, it makes me sick to quit. I ain't denyin' thet for a long time I've had hopes of ketchin' Wildfire. He's the grandest hoss I ever laid eyes on. I reckon no man, onless he was an Arab, ever seen as good a one. But now, thet's neither here nor there.… We've got to hit the back trail.”

“Boys, I reckon I'll stick to Wildfire's tracks,” said Lin, in the same quiet tone.

Bill swore at him, and the other hunter grew excited and concerned.

“Lin Slone, are you gone plumb crazy over thet red hoss?”

“I—reckon,” replied Slone. The working of his throat as he swallowed could be plainly seen by his companions.