Cabin Gulch Page 4

  At her elbow she heard a quick step and a sharp-drawn breath or hiss.

  “Aw, Jack!” cried Bill.

  Then Kells, in lithe and savage swiftness, came between them. He swung his gun, hitting Bill fully in the face. The man fell, limp and heavy, and he lay there, with a bloody gash across his brow. Kells stood over him a moment, slowly lowering the gun. Joan feared he meant to shoot.

  “Oh, don’t . . . don’t!” she cried. “He . . . he didn’t hurt me.”

  Kells pushed her back. When he touched her, she seemed to feel the shock of an electric current. His face had not changed, but his eyes were terrible. On the background of gray were strange leaping red flecks.

  “Take your horse,” he ordered. “No. Walk across the brook. There’s a trail. Go up the cañon. I’ll come presently. Don’t run and don’t hide. It’ll be the worse for you if you do. Hurry!”

  Joan obeyed. She flashed past the open-jawed Halloway and, running down to the brook, stepped across from stone to stone. She found the trail and hurriedly followed it. She did not look back. It never occurred to her to hide, to try to get away. She only obeyed—conscious of some force that dominated her. Once she heard loud voices—then the shrill neigh of a horse. The trail swung under the left wall of the cañon and ran along the noisy brook. She thought she heard shots and was startled, but she could not be sure. She stopped to listen. Only the babble of swift water and the sough of wind in the spruces greeted her ears. She went on, beginning to collect her thoughts, to conjecture on the significance of Kells’s behavior. But had that been the spring of his motive. She doubted it—she doubted all about him, save that subtle essence of violence, of ruthless force and intensity, of terrible capacity that hung around him.

  A halloo caused her to stop and turn. Two packed horses were jogging up the trail. Kells was driving them and heading her pony. Nothing could be seen of the other men. Kells rapidly overhauled her, and she had to get out of the trail to let the pack animals pass. He threw her bridle to her.

  “Get up,” he said.

  She complied. And then she bravely faced him.

  “Where are . . . the other men?”

  “We parted company,” he replied curtly.

  “Why?” she persisted.

  “Well, if you’re anxious to know, it was because you were winning their regard . . . too much to suit me.”

  “Winning their regard!” Joan exclaimed blankly.

  Here those gray piercing eyes went through her, then swiftly shifted. She was quick to divine from that the inference in his words—he suspected her of flirting with those ruffians, perhaps to escape him through them. That had only been his suspicion—groundless after his swift glance at her. Perhaps unconsciousness of his meaning, a simulated innocence and ignorance might serve her with this strange man. She resolved to try it, to use all a woman’s intuition and wit and cunning. Here was an educated man who was a criminal—an outcast. Deeply within him might be memories of a different life. They might be stirred. Joan decided in that swift instant, if she could understand him, learn his real intentions toward her, that she could cope with him.

  “Bill and his pard were thinking too much of . . . of the ransom I’m after,” went on Kells with a short laugh. “Come on now. Ride close to me.”

  Joan turned into the trail with his laugh ringing in her ears. Did she imagine a mockery in it? Was there any reason to believe a word this man said? She appeared as helpless to see through him as she was in her predicament.

  They had entered a cañon, such as was typical of that mountain range, and the winding trail that ran beneath the yellow walls was one unused to travel. Joan could not make out any old tracks, except those of deer and cougar. The crashing of wild animals into the chaparral, and the scarcely frightened flight of rabbits and grouse attested to the wildness of the place. They passed an old tumbled-down log cabin, once used, no doubt, by prospectors and hunters. Here the trail ended. Yet Kells kept on up the cañon. And for all Joan could tell, the walls grew only the higher and the timber heavier and the space wider.

  At a turn, when the second pack horse, that appeared unused to his task, came fully into Joan’s sight, she was struck with his resemblance to some horse with which she was familiar. It was scarcely an impression that she might have received from seeing Kells’s horse or Bill’s or anyone’s a few times. Therefore she watched this animal, studying his gait and behavior. It did not take long for her to discern that he was not a pack horse. He resented that burden. He did not know how to swing it. This made her deeply thoughtful and she watched closer than ever. All at once there dawned on her the fact that the resemblance here was to Roberts’s horse. She caught her breath and felt again that cold gnawing of fear within her. Then she closed her eyes the better to remember significant points about Roberts’s sorrel. A white left front foot—an old diamond brand—a ragged forelock—and an unusual marking, a light bar across his face. When Joan had recalled these, she felt so certain she would find them on this pack horse that she was afraid to open her eyes. She forced herself to look, and it seemed that in one glance she saw three of them. Still she clung to hope. Then the horse, picking his way, partially turning toward her, disclosed the bar across his face.

  Joan recognized it. Roberts was not on his way home. Kells had lied. Kells had killed him. How plain and fearful the proof! It verified Roberts’s gloomy prophecy. Joan suddenly grew sick and dizzy. She reeled in her saddle. It was only by dint of the last effort of strength and self-control that she kept her seat. She fought the horror as if it were a beast. Hanging over the pommel, with shut eyes, letting her pony find the way, she sustained this shock of discovery and did not let it utterly overwhelm her. As she conquered the sickening weakness, her mind quickened to the changed aspect of her situation. She understood Kells and the appalling nature of her peril. She did not know how she understood him now, but doubt had utterly fled. All was clear, real, grim, present. Like a child, she had been deceived, for no reason she could see. That talk of ransom was false. Likewise Kells’s assertion that he had parted company with Halloway and Bill because he would not share the ransom—that, too, was false. The idea of a ransom, in this light, was now ridiculous. From that first moment Kells had wanted her; he had tried to persuade Roberts to leave her and, failing, had killed him; he had rid himself of the other two men—and now Joan knew she had heard shots back there. Kells’s intention loomed out of all his dark brooding—and it stood clear now to her—dastardly, worse than captivity, or torture, or death, the worst fate that could befall a woman.

  The reality of it now was so astounding. True—as true as those stories she had deemed impossible! Because she and her people and friends had appeared secure in their mountain camp and happy in their work and trustful of good, they had scarcely credited the rumors of just such things as had happened to her. The stage held up by road agents, a lonely prospector murdered and robbed, fights in the saloons and on the trails, and useless pursuit of hard-riding men out there on the border, illusive as Arabs, swift as Apaches—these facts had been terrible enough, without the dread of worse. The truth of her capture, the meaning of it, were raw shocking spurs to Joan Randle’s intelligence, and courage. Since she still lived, unviolated, which was strange indeed in the illuminating light of her later insight into Kells and his kind, she had to meet him with all that was cat-like and subtle and devilish at the command of a woman. She had to win him, foil him, kiss him—or go to her death. She was no girl to be dragged into the mountain fastness by a desperado and made a plaything. Her horror and terror had worked its way deeply into the depths of her and uncovered powers never suspected, never before required in her scheme of life. She had no longer any fear. She matched herself against this man. She anticipated him. She felt like a woman who had lately been a thoughtless girl, who, in turn, had dreamed of vague old happenings of a past before she was born, of impossible adventures in her own future. Hate and wrath and outraged womanhood were not wholly the secret of Joan Randle�
�s flaming spirit.

  FOUR

  Joan Randle rode on and on, through that cañon, out at its head, and over a pass into another cañon, and never did she let it be possible for Kells to see her eyes until she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that they hid the strength and spirit and secret of her soul.

  The time came when the traveling was so steep and rough that she must think first of her horse and her own safety. Kells led up over a rock-jumbled spur of range, where she had sometimes to follow on foot. It seemed miles across that wilderness of stone. Foxes and wolves trotted back over open places, watching stealthily. All around dark mountain peaks stood up. The afternoon was far advanced when Kells started to descend again, and he rode a zigzag course on weathered slopes and over brushy benches, down and down into the cañons again.

  A lonely peak was visible, sunset flushing against the blue, from the point where Kells finally halted. That ended the longest ride Joan had ever made in one day. For miles and miles they had climbed and descended and wound into the mountains. Joan had scarcely any idea of direction. She was completely turned around and lost. This spot was the wildest and most beautiful she had ever seen. A cañon headed here. It was narrow, low-walled, and luxuriant with grass and wild roses and willow and spruce and balsam. There were deer standing with long ears erect, motionless, curious, tame as cattle. There were moving streaks through the long grass, showing the course of smaller animals slipping away.

  There under a giant balsam that reached aloft to the rim wall Joan saw a little log cabin, open in front. It had not been built very long; some of the log ends still showed yellow. It did not resemble the hunters’ and prospectors’ cabins she had seen on her trips with her uncle.

  In a sweeping glance Joan had taken in these features. Kells had dismounted and approached her. She looked out frankly, but not directly at him.

  “I’m tired . . . almost too tired to get off,” she said.

  “Fifty miles of rock and brush, up and down, without a kick!” he exclaimed admiringly. “You’ve got sand . . . girl!”

  “Where are we?”

  “This is Lost Cañon. Only a few men know of it. And they are . . . attached to me. I intend to keep you here.”

  “How long?”

  She felt the intensity of his gaze.

  “Why . . . as long as,” he replied slowly, “. . . till I get my ransom.”

  “What amount will you ask?”

  “You’re worth a hundred thousand in gold right now. Maybe, later, I might let you go for less.”

  Joan’s keen-wrought perception registered his covert, scarcely veiled implication. He was studying her.

  “Oh, poor uncle. He’ll never, never get so much.”

  “Sure he will,” replied Kells bluntly. Then he helped her out of the saddle. She was stiff and awkward, and she let herself slide. Kells handled her gently and like a gentleman. And for Joan the first agonizing moment of her ordeal was past. Her intuition had guided her correctly. Kells might have been and probably was the most depraved of outcast men, but the presence of a girl like her, however it affected him, must also have brought up associations of a time when by family and breeding and habit he had been infinitely different. His action here, just like the ruffian Bill’s, was instinctive, beyond his control. Just this slight thing, this frail link that joined Kells to his past and better life, immeasurably inspirited Joan and outlined the difficult game she had to play.

  “You’re a very gallant . . . robber,” she said.

  He appeared not to hear that or to note it. He was eyeing her up and down, and he moved closer, perhaps to estimate her height compared to his own.

  “I didn’t know you were so tall. You’re above my shoulder.”

  “Yes, I’m very lanky.”

  “Lanky! Why, you’re not that. You’ve a splendid figure . . . tall, supple, strong . . . you’re like a Nez Percé girl I knew once. You’re a beautiful thing. Didn’t you know that?”

  “Not particularly. My friends don’t dare flatter me. I suppose I’ll dare to stand it from you. But I didn’t expect compliments from Jack Kells of the Border Legion.”

  “Border Legion? Where’d you hear that name?”

  “I didn’t hear it. I made it up . . . thought of it myself.”

  “Well, you’ve invented something I’ll use. And what’s your name . . . your first name? I heard Roberts use it?”

  Joan felt a cold contraction of all her internal being, but outwardly she never so much as flicked an eyelash. “My name’s Joan.”

  “Joan!” He placed heavy compelling hands on her shoulders and turned her squarely toward him. Again she felt his gaze, strangely like the reflection of sunlight from ice. She had to look at him. This was her supreme test. For hours she had prepared for it, steeled herself, wrought upon all that was sensitive in her, and now she prayed, and swiftly looked up into his eyes. They were windows of a gray hell. She gazed into that naked abyss—at that dark uncovered soul with only the timid anxiety and fear, and the unconsciousness of an innocent ignorant girl.

  “Joan! You know why I brought you here?”

  “Yes, of course, you told me,” she replied steadily. “You want to ransom me for gold. And I’m afraid you’ll have to take me home without getting any.”

  “You know what I mean to do to you,” he went on thickly.

  “Do to me?” she echoed, and she never quivered a muscle. “You . . . you didn’t say. I haven’t thought. But you won’t hurt me . . . will you? It’s not my fault if there’s no gold to ransom me.”

  “Hell!” he exclaimed, and he shook her. His face changed, grew darker. “You know what I mean.”

  “I don’t. And you needn’t swear at me.”

  With some show of spirit she essayed to slip out of his grasp. He held her the tighter.

  “How old are you?”

  It was only in her height and development that Joan looked anywhere near her age. Often she had been taken for a very young girl.

  “I’m seventeen,” she replied. This was not the truth. It was a lie that did not falter on lips that had scorned falsehood.

  “Seventeen!” he ejaculated in amaze. “Honestly, now?”

  She lifted her chin scornfully, and remained alert.

  “Well, I’ll be damned. I thought you were a woman. I took you to be twenty-five . . . at least twenty-two. Seventeen, with that shape! You’re only a girl . . . a kid. You don’t know anything.”

  Then he released her, almost with violence, as if angered at her or himself, and he turned away to the horses. Joan walked toward the little cabin. The strain of that encounter left her weak, but once from under his eyes, certain that she had carried her point, she quickly regained her poise. There might be, probably would be infinitely more trying ordeals for her to meet than this one had been; she realized, however, that never again would she be so near betrayal of terror and knowledge and self.

  The scene of her isolation had a curious fascination for her. Something—and she shuddered—was to happen to her here in this lonely silent gorge. There were some flat stones made into a rude seat under the balsam tree, and a swift yard-wide stream of clear water ran by. Observing something white against the tree, Joan went closer. A card, the ace of hearts, had been pinned to the bark by a small cluster of bullet holes, every one of which touched the red heart, and one of them had obliterated it. Below the circle of bullet holes, scrawled in rude letters with a lead pencil was the name: Gulden. How little, a few nights back, when Jim Cleve had menaced Joan with names of Kells and Gulden, had she imagined they were actual men she was to meet and fear! And here she was the prisoner of one of them. She would ask Kells who and what this Gulden was. The log cabin was merely a shed, without fireplace or window, and the floor was a covering of balsam boughs, long dried out and withered. A dim trail led away from it down the cañon. If Joan was any judge of trails, this one had not seen the imprint of a horse track for many months. Kells had indeed brought her to a hiding place, one of those, perhaps,
that camp gossip said was inaccessible to any save a border hawk. Joan knew that only an Indian could follow the tortuous and rocky trail by which Kells had brought her in. She would never be tracked there by her own people.

  The long ride had left her hot, dusty, scratched, with tangled hair and torn habit. She went over to her saddle, which Kells had removed from her pony, and, opening the saddlebag, she took inventory of her possessions. They were few enough, but now, in view of an unexpected and enforced sojourn in the wilds, beyond all calculation of value. They included towel, soap, toothbrush, a mirror and comb and brush, a red scarf, and gloves. It occurred to her how seldom she carried that bag on her saddle and, thinking back, referred the fact to accident, and then with honest amusement owned that the motive might have been also a little vanity. Taking the bag, she went to a flat stone by the brook and, rolling up her sleeves, proceeded to improve her appearance. With deft fingers she re-braided her hair and arranged it as she had worn it when only sixteen. Then resolutely she got up and crossed over to where Kells was unpacking.

  “I’ll help you get supper,” she said.

  He was on his knees in the midst of a jumble of camp duffle that had been hastily thrown together. He looked up at her—from her shapely strong brown arms to the face she had rubbed rosy.

  “Say, but you’re a pretty girl!”

  He said it enthusiastically, in unstinted admiration, without the slightest subtlety or suggestion, and, if he had been the devil himself, it would have been no less a compliment, given spontaneously to youth and beauty.

  “I’m glad if it’s so, but please don’t tell me,” she rejoined simply.

  Then with swift and business-like movements she set to helping him with the mess the inexperienced pack horse had made of that particular pack. When that was straightened out, she began with the biscuit dough while he lighted a fire. It appeared to be her skill, rather than her willingness, that he yielded to. He said very little, but he looked at her often. And he had little periods of abstraction. The situation was novel, strange to him. Sometimes Joan read his mind and sometimes he was an enigma. But she divined when he was thinking what a picture she looked there, on her knees before the bread pan, with flour on her arms—of the difference a girl brought into any place—of how strange it seemed that this girl, instead of lying, a limp and disheveled rag under a tree, weeping and praying for home, made the best of a bad situation and improved it wonderfully by being a thoroughbred.