Blue Kingdom (28 page)

Then he saw her turn in the saddle. “That was a glorious thing to do!” she cried at him.

“Nothin' at all,” said Dunmore with a chuckle, and brought Excuse Me up beside them.

He wondered at Jimmy Larren, who did not speak a word, but rode with his head turned straight forward. His wonder turned to anxiety when he saw Jimmy grip the pommel of the saddle.

“Jim! Jim!” he cried, swinging Excuse Me beside the lad.

The boy did not answer, did not so much as nod.

“Are you hurt, Jimmy?”

Larren shook his head.

“Jim! Jim! They've nicked you, damn 'em!”

Beatrice was cantering ahead, and Jimmy suddenly threw the head of his mustang over and galloped knee to knee with Dunmore.

“Get her out of it. I'll drop back. They got me, chief, but don't you let her know. She's got a funny, woman's way, and she'd be apt to want to stay behind with me. Go on, chief. I'll pull through fine.”

Dunmore groaned. “Where is it?” he asked.

“Why, nothin'. I'm only nicked. I ain't hurt.” But the lad rode bowed over the pommel.

“They got you through the body!” exclaimed Dunmore. “Oh, the skunks! They've killed you, Jimmy.”

Jimmy gasped: “Don't make so much noise, or she'll hear you. Ride on, chief. Don't pay no attention. I had . . . to die, sometime.” He sagged heavily from the saddle as he spoke, and Dunmore gathered him into his arms, and lifted him out of the saddle. Limp as a half-filled sack lay the child against his breast, a lean, bony frame, the head falling back and bobbing over the arm of Dunmore. He had fainted completely away, and the pinto ran wildly on ahead, bolting with the reins flying high above his head.

Beatrice reined sharply in to them. “Not Jimmy!” she cried. “They haven't hurt him.”

“I think he's done for,” said Dunmore bitterly. “A better sort than you and me would ever be. Why should he've been hit? Where'll we take him?”

“It's Jim. It had to be the boy,” said Beatrice.
“There's a light yonder. Take him there, for heaven's sake.”

Dunmore asked no questions. If they were followed, even on foot, they might be located in this house. The house itself might be a fortress and stronghold of their enemies. But he was more assured when he saw it close at hand. It stood in a wide clearing. All around, in a great circle, the trees had been cut away from a low mound on the top of which stood a small shack, such as a hunter might use. Here in this lower valley the air was warm, the door of the shack was opened to it, and from the open door shone the lantern light dimly. Whatever this house might be, it was here that they must try to leave the boy. So he rode straight to it, and dismounted, holding the senseless lad in the strong cup of one arm.

It was a trapper's cabin, and the trapper rose from the work of making a stretcher on which to dry pelts. He was an old man with a very long white beard that flowed down from just beneath his eyes. Great overhanging brows, likewise heavily fringed with white, helped to give him a prophetic look.

“Why, hullo,” said this veteran. “What's matter? Accident?”

Dunmore walked straight in, and laid the boy on the bunk. He waved a hand at the proprietor, and then, with Beatrice hanging breathlessly at his shoulder, he bared the breast of poor Jim Larren. There was a great crimson slash over the heart. Beatrice moaned at the sight of it, but Dunmore, teeth gripping hard, put his finger into the wound. Straightway the tip of the forger struck the bone of a rib. That bone gave a little under
pressure, with a grating sound, and Jimmy groaned in his sleep. But the bone was merely cracked, it had not been cut through by the bullet that had glanced on around the side of the lad, leaving a dreadful furrow from which the blood streamed.

“He'll be ridin' buckin' hosses inside of three weeks,” said Dunmore, and the girl gasped with relief.

Dunmore ran out to his horse and brought in the saddlebag that contained materials for bandaging, and with lightning skill, Beatrice and the trapper helping, he soon had cleansed the wound and strapped a hard bandage around the body of the boy.

“Skinny little sparrow, ain't he?” remarked the trapper.

At that, Jimmy opened his eyes wide and looked straight up into the face of his impromptu host. “Hullo,” said Jimmy, “whose grandpa are you, mister?”

The trapper grinned. “You're gonna pull through, son,” he assured. “You been about as bad scared as you been hurt, I reckon.”

The face of Jimmy puckered with anger. “Chief,” he said, “did I show the white feather?”

“Never a touch of it, Jim,” said Dunmore.

“Go on, chief,” urged the boy. “You've gotta hurry. How much time you've wasted here on me might. . . .”

“We have to ride on,” said Dunmore. “If you'll take care of him for us, partner, I'll pay you.”

The trapper raised his hand in protest. “If I was a doctor or a hotel or some such,” he said, “I'd sure be glad to get your money, but the way it is, I can't use it. The kid's gonna be all right with me. You run along and forget about him. I'll be glad to have him for company.”
“Go on, chief, go on!” pleaded the lad.

Dunmore gripped both the hard, skinny hands in one of his and stared into Larren's eyes. “You've been as straight as a gun barrel and as good as gold, kid,” he said. “I'm comin' back for you later on. You and me belong together.”

Tears that his pain could not have brought to the eyes of Jimmy Larren now misted his sight. He tried to speak, but there was only a twisting of his mouth. Beatrice kissed him, then she turned behind Dunmore toward the door. He sprang out of it for the mare, but his hand did not get to her. Three rifles flashed from the brush on that side of the clearing as Dunmore appeared. One bullet nicked the hip of the mare and sent her off at a wild gallop. Another slashed the cheek of Dunmore as he leaped back into the hut again.

He slammed the door, and looked savagely about him. There was a small window at the back of the shack, but yet it was perhaps not too small for him to wedge his shoulders through and draw the girl after him. He leaped to it, and jerked up the sash. Instantly half a dozen shots barked from the bottom of the hill, and he heard the pellets of lead strike the logs with a soggy impact.

He whirled back again toward the door. Blind fighting instinct urged him to break out through that door again and charge the enemy, and he actually had taken a step toward it, scooping up his rifle as he went, when the thin, piping voice of Jimmy called out: “Don't do it, chief! Don't do it, for Pete's sake! They got you cornered, but they ain't got you in hand yet. Chief, take your time, will you?”

Beatrice ran to the door, shot home the bolt, and then put her shoulders against it. He, lurching forward still full of his first impulse, stopped to brush her aside. But she struck at his hand and shook her head.

“They're lying down, with beads all drawn,” she said. “They can't miss you. Don't go, Carrick. Don't go.” She was white. Her lips trembled with earnestness.

Dunmore stepped slowly back from her. “You're right,” he said. “I'll have to stay here. It's better that way, a lot.” For though it might be that she had interfered as she would have done to keep any man from running out to death, still he felt that there was something more in the emotion with which she had spoken.

“Good for you!” called the boy. “Good for you, Beatrice. If that maverick had busted loose, they'd've turned him into beef in about two steps.”

“Halloo!” called a voice on the outside. “Hey! Whitey Dodd!”

The old trapper went to the door and set it ajar a crack. “Halloo!” he thundered back. “Is that you, Neighbor Parson, that's come here murderin' my guests in the middle of the night?”

“Guests, you old loon?” yelled Parson in answer. “It's Dunmore and Tankerton's girl!”

Whitey Dodd fairly reeled from the shock of this announcement, but he rallied instantly. “Nobody in this here house is for sale, Parson!” he yelled. “And they can't raise the price high enough to get 'em!”

“You're cracked in the head,” the other assured him.

There was a nest of rocks halfway between the house and the beginning of the woods, and from this vantage point the speaker called on behalf of the besiegers.

“I'd rather be a cracked bell than a sold one,” retorted Dodd hotly. “If you-all start for this house, I'm gonna be ready for you, and I tell you that I don't miss my shots!”

“The old rattle-head,” commented a voice from the rocks, perfectly audible in the breathless stillness of the night, “is gonna get romantic and big-hearted. And he'll hold us up till the Tankertons get here and grab most of the reward for themselves. And here we are, ten of us, that had oughta be able to divide the profit
among us. Whitey's beatin' us out of more'n a thousand dollars apiece.”

“I'd like to have his scalp,” said a companion. “Look sharp, old son. That Dunmore might bust loose any minute.”

“I'm watching, all right. I got that reward right inside the hook of my trigger finger, in case he tries to bust out in this direction. Is that horses?”

It was the wind, rattling with a sudden violence in the leaves of the trees, and then making the big boughs groan dismally. A film of cloud was instantly tarnishing the moonlight, and Dunmore, watching from the door that was still ajar, could thank his fortune that was sending a light less brilliant. Even so, he could not see a possible solution of his problem. The house was solidly surrounded, and even the horses were gone. So that it must be a case of breaking out on foot, in which event there was hardly a chance in a million that they would be able to get clear. Besides, the Tankertons would soon be here.

Even as he thought of it, he heard a noise louder than the rattling of the leaves in the wind, and in a moment it had grown into the distinct beating of hoofs. They poured up to the verge of the clearing. Voices called. There was a triumphant Indian yell from many throats, the wild sound shrilling and thrilling the blood. Then all doubt ended, and all hope with it. The Tankertons were here.

“They've come,” said Dunmore over his shoulder, without looking back.

“Let 'em stay till they rot!” said the trapper savagely. “They'll get no man out of my house.”

“Won't they everlastin'ly lambaste us?” asked Jimmy Larren, laughing feebly. “Ain't they just gonna drill this here house from one end to the other, though?”

“These here logs will soak up lead like a blotter soaks up water,” said Whitey Dodd. “Besides, will the Tankertons fire into the house as long as their woman is here?” He turned toward Beatrice. She stood against the farthest wall of the cabin, staring steadfastly at Dunmore.

“In this here game of tag,” he said, “it looks as though I've been caught. You're free to go whenever you feel like it. Just unbolt the door again for her, will you, Dodd?”

Beatrice shook her head. “I've made my bargain. I'll stick to it,” she said. “I'm not going to leave.”

A loud voice called from the clearing at this moment: “Dunmore! Dunmore!”

He paused for another inquiring glance at the girl, but she looked back at him as steadily as a soldier on parade. Then he went back to the door.

“Dunmore!” came the voice of Furneaux.

“I hear you, Furneaux.”

“Dunmore, you're trapped and done for,” he said. “But I'll give you a last chance to die like a man. Come out here and I'll stand up to you, man to man.”

Dunmore laughed. Rage and despair were in that laughter, but afterward he answered: “I know the way we would fight. You in the open, and twenty rifles among the trees. As Tucker and Legges and Tankerton fought, they'd fight again. One honest man don't make a square show.”

“Is that final?” said Furneaux. “You won't come out?”

There was sufficient anger in Dunmore, considering his helpless position, to have made him leap at such a chance, but it seemed to him, as he leaned against the door and talked, that he could see again the dark old panel in the Furneaux house that showed his own features out of the old time dimly, like a face reflected in muddy water. But he was The Dunmore, and this was a member of his clan. That old pride of race that had sent him into the mountains to do the impossible now boiled up in him again, steadied him, and enabled him to answer almost gently: “I won't come out against you, Furneaux.”

“If you were any other man,” he responded, “I'd call you a coward and a sneak. Heaven knows what you are, Dunmore. But you've done a thing worse than murder. You're going to die, Dunmore, and heaven have pity on your soul. Where is she now?”

“She's with me in this cabin.”

“Are you going to keep her there until the bullets have killed her?” shouted Furneaux.

“I'm going to send her out,” answered Dunmore. “The rest of them go with her . . . Dodd and Jimmy Larren, I mean. Larren is wounded. What sort of care will he get with you?”

“I'll give you my word for that. I'll take care of the kid. Do you mean that you'll send them out freely?”

“Man,” exclaimed Dunmore, “what sort of a low hound do you think I am?”

“It's finished, then,” said Furneaux. “Tankerton has left this job to me. I'll promise you one thing, and that
is that there'll be no burning you out. You'll have as fair a chance as I can give you.”

“Why,” said the prisoner, “that's more than any man could really ask for. I'll send them out at once.” He turned to the other three.

“I dunno,” said Whitey Dodd, “that I've ever been turned out of my house before by any gent that wanted to use it for a coffin. I claim it's big enough to hold two, and I'll stay.”

“That's your idea of it, Whitey,” said Dunmore good-humoredly. “But step into my boots and you'll see the other side of it. Can I let you stay here and be butchered? Go out, Dodd, or I'll have to push you through the door myself.”