Tharon of Lost Valley, Page 3

  CHAPTER III

  THE MAN IN UNIFORM

  Spring was warming swiftly into summer. Where the gently slopingranges went up in waves and swells toward the uplands at the east, thebright new green had turned to a darker shade. The tiny purple andwhite flowers had disappeared to give place to sturdier ones ofcrimson and gold. The veil of water that fell sharply down the face ofthe Wall for a thousand feet at the Valley's southern end had thinnedto sheerest gauze. In the Canon Country the snow had disappeared frommost of the high points. Red, black, yellow, the great face of theencircling Wall stood in everlasting majesty, looking down upon thelevel cup of Lost Valley. The unspeakable upheaval of peaks and crags,of canyons and splits and unfathomable depths, was almost a sealed bookto the denizens of the Valley. There were those who knew False Ridge.

  There were those who said they knew more. Many a man had adventuredtherein, and few had returned to tell of their adventures. Canon Jimhad not returned. Not that he was a loss to the community, or thatthey mourned him, but his absence pointed again to the formidablesecretive power of the Canon Country.

  Tharon Last, standing in her western door, could look across theValley's deceptive miles and see the huge black seams and fissuresthat rent the grim face. These splits and canyons were peculiar in thatnone came down to the Valley's floor, their yawning doorways being, inevery instance, set from two hundred to five hundred feet up theWall.

  Often the girl watched them in the changing lights and her active mindformed many a conjecture concerning them.

  "Some day," she told young Paula, "I'll go into the Canon Country andsee it for myself."

  "Saints forbid, Senorita!" said Paula, who had no love for themysterious, and who was more Mexic than Porno, "there are demons anddevils there!"

  "Yes, I doubt not, Paula," said Tharon grimly. "They say Courtreyknows th' Canons, an' when he's there, it's peopled, an' no mistake!

  "But it must be beautiful--beautiful! Why--there's a thousand feet ofcrevasse on every hand, I know, steps an' benches an' weathered facesthat no man can climb. They say there's bright waters that tumbledown like th' Vestal's Veil and sink into holes without an outlet.Just go away in the rock. There's strange flowers an' stunted trees.An' they tell of th' Cup of God, a hidden glade so beautiful that th'eye of man has never seen its like. All my life it's called me, th'Canon Country.

  "Don't you believe, Paula, that there's somethin' there for me? Somereason why I know I must some day go into its heart an' give myself upto it for a time? If I was free," she finished with a sigh, "if I wasmy own woman, wholly, I'd go soon. There's rest an' peace up there, Iknow--and a place to think of Jim Last without such bitterness that myheart turns t' gall."

  She shook her bright head against the doorpost and shut her soft lipsinto a straight line.

  "Nope," she finished sadly, "I ain't my own woman yet."

  * * * * *

  "Tharon," said Billy Brent this day, clanking around the corner of theadobe house, his leather chaps flapping with every step, his yellowhair curling boyishly under his hat-brim. "Tharon, I got bad news foryou."

  There was genuine distress in his grey eyes.

  "Yes?" asked the mistress of Last's, straightening up.

  "Yes, sir, an' I hate like hell t' tell it."

  "Out with it, Billy. What's wrong?"

  "Somebody's dynamited th' Crystal Spring in th' Cup Rim."

  "_What?_"

  The word was in italics. Its one syllable told all one might care toknow of the importance of Billy's news.

  "Yes. Opened her up fer two square yards. Spread th' lovely oldCrystal all over th' range. An' she's gone, as sure's shootin'.Nothin' but a lot o' wet an' dryin' mud to show for her."

  Tharon drew a long breath.

  "Courtrey's beginnin'," she said. "He's heard th' word I sent th'settlers. He's goin' t' use th' tactics now with Last's that he's usedwith every poor devil he wanted to run out of th' Valley, th' tacticshe darsent use while Jim Last lived. Well--go send Conford to me,Billy."

  The girl sat down in the doorway and gazed sombrely out over thesummer land.

  When her foreman came and stood before her, a slim, efficient figure,dark-faced and quiet, she had already made up her mind.

  "Burt," she said swiftly, "drive th' cattle down from th' Cup Rimright away. We'll run those two bunches under Blue Pine an' Nick Bobout toward th' Black Coulee. Tell 'em t' keep close t' th' others. Itrust th' Indians, but there ain't no Indian livin' can meetCourtrey's white renegades in courage an' wits. Then we'll start rightin an' dig a well th' first well ever dug on th' open range in thisman's land."

  "Good Lord, Tharon!" said Conford, "A well!"

  "Yes. Th' livin' water holes have been th' pride of th' Valley, Iknow, but we'll fix this well of ours so's even Courtrey will respectit."

  There was a grim note in the golden voice.

  "How?" asked Conford uneasily.

  "Dig it first," said Tharon, "then I'll tell you."

  What the mistress said, went. Therefore, the next morning saw adisgusted bunch of cowboys and Indian _vaqueros_ setting to with awill at a spot much nearer the Holding than the Crystal had been, andit took a much shorter time to reach water in a good gravel bed thanany one had dreamed.

  In three days the thing was done and Conford presented himself,smiling.

  "Now, Miss Secrecy," he said, "come on with th' mystery."

  Tharon went in to the big desk which Jim Last had used and which wasnow her own, and returned with a square white slab of pine,elaborately smoothed and finished by Jose.

  "Read that," she said, and held it up, face out.

  Printed neatly upon its shining surface, in the jet-black ink that oldAnita made from the berries of a certain bush which grew at the footof the cliffs across the Valley, were these words:

  "This well is planted. I hope it blows up the first thief who tries todestroy it. Tharon Last."

  Conford took the slab, scratched his head, holding his hat betweenthumb and finger, read it over, read it again, smiled, and then lookedup.

  "Might work," he said, "an' you're givin' out your stand an' knowledgebroadcast, ain't you?"

  "Certainly am," said Tharon briefly. "I said I'd fight, an' I want th'whole Valley t' know it."

  "It does," said Conford with conviction. "I heard in Corvan yesterdaythat John Dement has rode th' range continuous since he finishedbrandin' his new herd to tell th' settlers about it."

  "Good," said Tharon, "couldn't be better. There's got to be a changein Lost Valley sooner or later. Might as well be sooner."

  And with that thought the girl let her quick mind sweep out to take inthe future. She sent Conford off to post her placard and herself wentrummaging among the possibilities which her defy had placed beforeher. She knew that Courtrey would be coldly furious. He had lived hislife as suited him, had taken what and where he listed, by fair meansor foul, and though every soul in the Valley knew him and his methods,none had spoken the convicting word. It was the pen-stroke at the endof the death-warrant to do so.

  She knew that the faction of the settlers hated him and his with avitriolic passion, that they were in the minority, that they were notin gods themselves, and that they were being beaten out, one by one.

  Year by year Courtrey had added to his vast acreage, and it was amatter of common knowledge how he had done it. He was rich, powerful,bullying, a man whose self-aggrandizement knew no limit, whose merestwhim was his law, whose will must not be thwarted. Year by year his_vaqueros_ drove down the Wall herds of fat cattle, their brandsblurred, insolently raw and careless. Many a hapless man had stood andseen his own stock go by in Courtrey's band and dared not open hismouth. In fact Courtrey had been known to stop and chat with such aone, smiling his evil smile and enjoying the helpless chagrin of hisvictim.

  "Insolent ruffian!" muttered Tharon this day, frowning above herdaddy's pipes on the desk top. "He's goin' t' get one run for hismoney from now till one of us is whipped.
It may be me, but I'llleave my mark on him, so help me!

  "Straight killin's too good for him. I want to smash him first."

  "Tharon, mi _Corazon_," said Anita, stopping soft-foot beside her, "itis bad for one to talk so, to himself. The Evil One works on the mindthat way."

  Tharon laughed.

  "Perhaps, Anita," she said shortly, "it is with the Evil One I have t'do, an' no mistake."

  The old woman crossed herself and went away, her wrinkled face dimwith care. And Tharon dressed herself neatly, put a ribbon on herhair, set her wide hat carefully on her head, buckled on her heavygun-belt, and went to the corral for El Rey. Her daddy's saddle washer own now, a huge affair carved and ornamented, profusely studdedwith silver.

  Along the right side below the pommel ran a darker stain, Jim Last'sblood, set before his daughter like a star.

  She mounted the silver stallion and went away down along the summerland, a shaft of light shooting through the green of the ranges.

  Far over to her left she could see her cattle, beautiful bunchesspread like figures in a tapestry. The figures of her riders weresmall dots on the outskirts.

  El Rey, always hard on the bit, always strong-headed, wanted to runand she swung loose her rein and let him go. But run as he might,there was always in his speed that rising note, that seeming ofreserve power.

  She passed the head of Black Coulee, swung out across the edge ofRolling Cove, thundered down to the ford of the Broken Bend. Here shelet the stallion drink, deep draughts that would have slowed a lesserhorse. El Rey went up the bank beyond the ford like a charging engine,squared away and stretched out to finish his run. He was within threemiles of Corvan, set like a stone in a smooth green surface, before hecame down and lifted his shoulders into his gait. With the first rockand swing of the singlefoot, Tharon smiled and settled herself morecomfortably in the saddle. This was joy to her, this beautifulsyncopation, this poetic marked time that reeled off the miles beneathher and would scarcely have shaken a pebble from her hat-brim.

  As she struck the outskirts of the little town the unmistakable soundof El Rey's iron-shod hoofs brought heads into doors, children at thehouse corners to look upon her. She came down the main street at asmart clip, to bring up with a slide at the hitch-rail beforeBaston's store where the monthly mail was handled. There were horsestied there, and among them she saw what caused her to look twice witha narrowing of her keen eyes--a huge, raw-boned, black, rusty andslug-headed, among the Ironwood bays from Courtrey's Stronghold.

  "H'm," she told herself quietly, "so there's where he was expected."

  She tied El Rey to himself, far from the rest, for she knew hisimperious temper and that trouble would ensue if he was near strangehorses.

  Then she went into Baston's with her meal-sack on her arm. Thismeal-sack was a part of her accoutrement, a regular carry-all for suchsmall purchases as she must take home--a roll of print for Paula, sometobacco for the men, a dozen spools of the linen thread which was somuch prized among the women of Lost Valley.

  As she stepped in the open door her quick glance went over the bigroom with a comprehensiveness which catalogued its inmates accuratelyand instinctively. Courtrey was not there, though his great bay, Bolt,stood outside. However, Wylackie Bob was there. This man, sitting at acanvas covered table in a corner, idly fingering a pack of cards, wasnot one to be passed over easily. He was notorious.

  Tall, slow of action, sleepy-eyed, he was treacherous as a snake, asswift to move when necessary. He had been known to sit as he was now,idly playing, to leap up, crouch, draw and kill a man, and be downagain at his place, idly playing, before the breath was done in hisvictim.

  He was a past-master of his gun, and unlike most men of the time andplace, he carried only one.

  He was a quarter-blood Wylackie Indian. Near him sat the stranger whohad ridden the slug-head black into Lost Valley. They both looked upas the girl entered and regarded her with smiles.

  Tharon did not look at them again. She saw, however, that they weretogether, of one interest. There were two or three of the settlers inthe store, Jameson from over under the Rockface at the south, Hillfrom farther up, Thomas from Rolling Cove. She spoke to these menquietly and noticed with an inward thrill the eagerness with whichthey responded.

  There was an electric something between them which told her that herpromise had, indeed, gone up and down the country, that in a subtle,unheralded manner she stood in Jim Last's place, a head, a leader.

  She made her purchases without undue speech, got two letters in herfather's name--and these brought a smarting under her eyelids--tied upher sack and went out without so much as a glance at the two men inthe corner. Laughter followed her, however, which set the red blood ofanger pulsing in her cheeks.

  At the end of the store porch she came face to face with Courtrey andSteptoe Service, the sheriff of Menlo county. She swung to one side todescend the rough steps, vouchsafing them no word or look, but Serviceblocked her way. She raised her eyes and looked him full in the face,scanning his coarse red features coolly.

  "Well?" she said sharply.

  "What's this I hear, Tharon?" asked Service, "about you a-makin'threats?"

  "What have you heard?" she wanted to know.

  "W'y, that you're a-makin' threats."

  "Yes?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well?"

  The sheriff flushed darker.

  "Look here, young woman,"--he raised his voice suddenly and on theinstant there was a sound of boots on the store floor and thesettlers, the two men in the corner, Baston and two clerks camecrowding out to hear, "you look a-here--don't you know it's a-gin th'law for any one t' make a threat like you done, open an' above board,in th' Golden Cloud th' other night?"

  Tharon shifted the meal-sack higher on her left arm. Courtrey's eyeswent down to her right hand and stayed there.

  The girl's upper lip lifted from her teeth in a sneer that was theacme of insult. The fire was beginning to play in her blue eyes.

  "Law?" she said. "My God! Law!"

  "Yes, _law_! you young hussy, an' don't you fergit that I representit."

  The girl threw down the sack and flashed both hands on the gun-butts.Courtrey, watching, was half-a-second behind her and stopped with hishands hovering.

  "Not much, Courtrey," she said, "you fast gun man! You're too slow.An' this ain't your game, anyway, not face t' face. You're all righton a dark night--_an' from behind_. Fine! But you're a coward. You'rewhat I called you before--an assassin."

  She was pale as ashes, her eyes narrowed to blazing slits. Jim Last,gun man, was in her like those composite pictures which show theshadow in the substance. There was a gasp from the store porch whereThomas stood with a shaking hand covering his lips. Baston was stuckagainst his wall like a leech, rigid. These men knew that she tempteddeath.

  Not a man in Lost Valley could have done it and gotten away with it.

  Tharon knew it, too, but she did not care.

  "An' now you know what you are, Courtrey. I'll tell th' same to you,Step Service. Law! In Lost Valley? Yes, Courtrey's law! Th' law of th'gun alone--th' law of thieves--th' law of murderers. An' you stand forthat, you bet! What were you before you took th' oath of office? Tellme that! Th' man who killed old Mike McCrea an' took his cattle downth' Wall! Th' whole Valley knows it--but we've never dared to say itbefore!"

  The porch was lined with people now. Soft-footed Indians and Mexican_vaqueros_, sprung from nowhere, cowboys, ranchers, women, they camesilently up and listened.

  The sheriff's red face was the colour of liver, purple and mottledwith bursting rage. His fingers worked at his sides. He set his lips,and his small eyes never left the girl's face.

  Tharon, crouched a bit, her feet apart, her elbows crooked above herhips, her fingers curled on her gun-butts with nice precision, wet herown pale lips and continued:

  "An' who put you in office? That laugh of an office! Who? Why,Courtrey--th' biggest thief, th' coldest murderer in th' country! _He_put you ther
e! An' what are you good for? My daddy was shot--_in th'back_--an' did you make one inquiry into the murder? Come out toLast's, even to find a clew? Not you! There's only one sheriff in thisValley--one bit o' law that will avenge his death--an' that's _me_!Now, you two fine gentlemen--I'm goin'. There's my hand! I throw th'cards on th' table! Shoot me in the back if you've got th' nerve. Comeout in th' open an' fight! _But you better be quick about it!_"

  With that she backed slowly along the porch, keeping them in view.

  "Get away behind me," she called. There was a path opened instantly,the sound of shuffling feet. Along the porch she went, step by step,stopping every moment or so to keep close hold on her advantage, everynerve strained, every one of her faculties at the top of its power.

  She felt for the step with her foot, went down, backed through thecrowd, brought them all in the range of the guns which she flashed outnow and held upon them.

  She was ashy pale, a flaming, vibrant thing. Not a man there but knewshe was more dangerous at the moment than cool Jim Last had ever been,for she radiated hatred of her father's killer in every bitterglance. She had none for whom to be cautious. She was the last of herblood. She was efficient, and she knew it.

  Courtrey knew it, and felt the sweat start on his skin.

  Service knew it, and hated her for it.

  As the girl backed clear there came into her vision a strangefigure--the straight, trim figure of a man who stood stiffly atattention, where her imperious words had caught him.

  He wore a uniform of semi-military style, leather leggings, a flannelshirt of butternut and a smart, tan, broad-brimmed hat.

  He, too, came in the range of the travelling guns and waited theirpleasure.

  Tharon reached El Rey. She stuck her right-hand weapon in its holster,loosed the rein, flung it over the stallion's head, stepped around hisshoulder and mounted deftly and swiftly from the wrong side. It was apretty trick of horsemanship and showed up her adroitness. As El Reyrose on his hind feet, whirling, that unwavering muzzle whirled also,to keep in line. The king struck into his gait and his rider, facingbackward, swung away down the narrow street. Until she was well out ofrange the tension held.

  Then Steptoe Service struck a fist into a palm and began to swear ina fury, but Courtrey laughed, one of his rare, short bursts of mirththat were more bodeful than oaths.

  He turned on his heel and strode back the way he had come.

  The stranger in the uniform walked forward, went up the steps, crossedthe porch, and, stooping, picked up the meal-sack which Tharon haddropped.

  "Will some one kindly tell me who the young lady is and where shelives?" he asked gravely.

  Baston, unglued from the wall, spoke up with his usual pompouseagerness.

  "Tharon, from Last's Holdin'," he said.

  "Thanks," and the man wrapped the sack into a small bundle and tied itwith its own string.

  He stuck it under one arm and taking out a short brown pipe, proceededto fill and light it.

  Courtrey, halted a few rods away, eyed him sharply.

  As he turned, rolling his match to death in his fingers, the sunstruck mellowly upon something on his breast, a small, dark coppershield which bore strange heraldry.

  At the sight Courtrey's eyes sought Service's and held them for aswift, questioning moment.

  Strangers in Lost Valley were contraband.

  The three settlers looked covertly at each other, drifted apart, gottheir horses and presently left town by different ways.

  Three hours later these men met by common consent at the head ofRolling Cove and talked long and earnestly of the happening. They knewthat Courtrey would never take silently that bitter arraignment, thatsomething would transpire swiftly to show his resentment, to prove hisabsolute power over Lost Valley.

  "'Tain't Tharon that'll suffer, even ef he did try t' shoot her thatnight in th' Golden Cloud, because Courtrey wants her himself," saidJameson quietly, "th' whole country knows that. There was only one manwho didn't know it, an' that was Jim Last himself. No, he won't monkeywith th' Holdin' yet, not to any great extent. It'll be us littlefellers, us others who he knows would stan' behind her. Some of us'lllose somethin' soon, an' don't you forget it."

  "If we do," said Hill passionately, "it's time t' show our hand. We'vebeen hounded long enough. Th' men from Last's will be with us, we cangamble on that."

  "Yes," said Thomas, "but it'll be war. Open war. There'll be killin'sthen."

  Jameson, a quiet man with deep eyes, made a wide gesture.

  "What if there is?" he asked, "might's well be done in th' open as inth' dark an' unseen. Might better be! I move we ride th' Valley an'ask th' settlers to band together, under Last's, an' give ourultimatum t' Courtrey on th' heels of this. What say you?"

  "I say yes," said Hill swiftly. Thomas, of less stern stuff, wavered.

  "Well, let's wait awhile. Let's don't be too quick. Courtrey now, he'smighty quick an' hot. They ain't no tellin'----"

  "All right," said Jameson promptly, "suit yourself--we ain'ta-pressin' no man into this."

  "Why, now, I'm fer it, boys--that is, I'm believin' it's got t' bedone, only I counsels time."

  "No time," cried Hill, "we ben counselin' time an' quiet an' not doin'anything to stir 'em up, an' what d' we get? Cattle stole everyspring, waterholes taken an' fenced fer Courtrey's stock right on th'open range, hogs drove off, fences tore down, like pore old JohnDement's an' some of us left t' rot every year in some coulee. We donewaited a sight too long. Courtrey thinks he owns Lost Valley, an' hecomes near doin' it, what with his hired killers, Wylackie an' BlackBart an' this new gun man that's just come in. I heered today he'sfrom Arizona, an' imported article."

  Jameson turned to him and held out his hand.

  "I'm goin' to ride tomorrow," he said.

  Hill grasped the extended hand and looked hard in the other's eyes.

  "Me, too," he said.

  Thomas, still of the timid, doubting heart, watched them with a handover his mouth to hide its shaking.

  Without a word the others turned their horses and rode away indifferent directions. As they went farther from him in the wash of thelate light the uncertain hand came down with a jerk. Fear was in hiseyes, the deep, quaking fear of the man poor in courage, but he beatit down.

  "Boys!" he cried in a panic, "don't leave me out! For God's sake,don't think I ain't willin'! I'll be out come day tomorrow!"

  The others both stopped and turned in their saddles.

  "Glad to hear ye come through, Thomas," called Jameson, "you ridesouth along th' Rockface. You'll go over Black Coulee way, won't ye,Dan?"

  "I will," said Hill.

  "Good. I'll go north."

  There was a quiet grimness in the few words, for he who rode north onsuch an errand tempted fate.

  Then the three separated, and there was only the silence and the redlight of the dying day at the head of Rolling Cove.

  That same evening Tharon Last sat in her western doorway and watchedthe sun go down in majesty over the weathered peaks and ridges of theCanon Country.

  Billy Brent lounged on the hard earth beside the step, his fair headshining in the afterglow, his grey eyes upon the girl's face in a sortof idol-worship.

  The curve of her cheek, golden with tan and red with the hue of youth,was more to him than all the sunsets the world had ever seen.

  A deep light shone in his young eyes which, had the girl been wise,she might have seen. But Tharon was as elemental as the kitten chasinga moth out by the pansy bed, and could look in a man's face with theunconscious eyes of a child.

  Now she watched the pageant of the dying day in a rapt delight.

  "Billy," she said presently, "I've often wondered if there's anotherplace in all the world as lovely as our Valley. Jim Last told me oncethat there were places so much bigger out below, that we wouldn't be apatchin' to them. Don't seem like there could be."

  She lifted her slim body up along the doorpost and looked long andearnestly all up and down the
wonderful stretch of country that layalong the Wall from north to south. She could see the tiny dots thatwent for the different homesteads, scattered here and there. Up at thehead there lay, hard against the frowning hills, the squat, wide blurthat was Courtrey's Stronghold. Her lips compressed at sight of it.

  "Nope," she said, shaking her head, "I don't believe he meant it. Heused to tease me a lot, you know. It's an awful big valley, an' nomistake."

  The rider, who had drifted up along the Wall five years before, lookeddown at the playing kitten and smiled with a lean crinkling of hischeeks.

  "It's a sure-enough big place, Tharon," he said gravely, "an' it'slovely as Eden."

  "Huh?" said Tharon, "where's that, Billy?"

  The boy sobered and looked up into her blue eyes.

  "Why, Tharon," he whispered, "that's where th' heart is."

  For a moment she regarded him. Then she smiled.

  "Billy," she said severely, "you're stringin' your boss. I'm suregoin' to fire you, some day, like I ben a-threatenin'."

  "Do--an' hire me over!"

  "Nope."

  The girl shut her pretty lips and the man's hand crept softly up andtouched her wrist where it lay against her knee.

  "All right," he said airily, "gimme my time. I quit."

  There was an odd note in his voice, as if under the play there was apurpose. For a second Tharon held her breath.

  "What you mean, Billy?" she asked so sharply that the boy jumped.

  Then he laughed, still in that light fashion.

  "What I said," he affirmed doggedly.

  But the mistress of Last's took a clutch on his hand that wasauthority in force and leaned down to look anxiously in his face.

  "Why, Billy," she said with a quiver in her voice, "Last's couldn'trun without you, boy. An' what's more, I thought all th' riders of th'Holdin' would stand by th' place."

  Billy, fully sobered, straightened up and held hard to that clutchinghand. The red light of the sunset flushed his cheeks, but it never setthe glow that was in his eyes.

  "Don't you know yet, Tharon," he said quietly, "when I'm a-jokin' withyou? I'd stand by Last's an' you to my last breath. Don't you knowthat?"

  For a long moment Tharon regarded him gravely.

  "Yes, I do," she said, "but somehow I don't like to have you talkthat-a-way, Billy. Don't do it no more."

  "All right," promised the rider, "if you say so, Boss. Only don't talkabout firin' me, then. I'm very sensitive."

  And he looked away with smiling eyes to where the deep black shadowsfell prone into the Valley from the forbidding face of the greatWall.

  Only the towering peaks were alight with crimson and gold, whichhaloed their bulk in majestic mystery.

  Night was coming fast across Lost Valley, while the tree-toads out bythe springhouse set up their nightly chorus.

  "It's Eden," thought the man, "as sure's th' world, made an' forgotwith all its trimmin's--innocence an' sweetness an' plenty, an' th'silence of perfect peace, not to overlook th' last unnecessary evil,th' livin' presence of his majesty, th' devil."

  Then the light died wholly and there came the disturbing sound ofboots on the ringing stones. The rest of the riders were coming in toclaim their share of Billy's Eden.