Zane Grey (27 page)

A pin point of light penetrated the blackness. It made Jean's heart
leap. The Jorth contingent were burning the big lamp that hung in the
center of Greaves's store. Jean listened. Loud voices and coarse
laughter sounded discord on the melancholy silence of the night. What
Blue had called his instinct had surely guided him aright. Death of
Gaston Isbel was being celebrated by revel.

In a few moments Jean had regained his breath. Then all his faculties
set intensely to the action at hand. He seemed to magnify his hearing
and his sight. His movements made no sound. He gained the wagon,
where he crouched a moment.

The ground seemed a pale, obscure medium, hardly more real than the
gloom above it. Through this gloom of night, which looked thick like a
cloud, but was really clear, shone the thin, bright point of light,
accentuating the black square that was Greaves's store. Above this
stood a gray line of tree foliage, and then the intensely dark-blue sky
studded with white, cold stars.

A hound bayed lonesomely somewhere in the distance. Voices of men
sounded more distinctly, some deep and low, others loud, unguarded,
with the vacant note of thoughtlessness.

Jean gathered all his forces, until sense of sight and hearing were in
exquisite accord with the suppleness and lightness of his movements. He
glided on about ten short, swift steps before he halted. That was as
far as his piercing eyes could penetrate. If there had been a guard
stationed outside the store Jean would have seen him before being seen.
He saw the fence, reached it, entered the yard, glided in the dense
shadow of the barn until the black square began to loom gray—the color
of stone at night. Jean peered through the obscurity. No dark figure
of a man showed against that gray wall—only a black patch, which must
be the hole in the foundation mentioned. A ray of light now streaked
out from the little black window. To the right showed the wide, black
door.

Farther on Jean glided silently. Then he halted. There was no guard
outside. Jean heard the clink of a cap, the lazy drawl of a Texan, and
then a strong, harsh voice—Jorth's. It strung Jean's whole being
tight and vibrating. Inside he was on fire while cold thrills rippled
over his skin. It took tremendous effort of will to hold himself back
another instant to listen, to look, to feel, to make sure. And that
instant charged him with a mighty current of hot blood, straining,
throbbing, damming.

When Jean leaped this current burst. In a few swift bounds he gained
his point halfway between door and window. He leaned his rifle against
the stone wall. Then he swung the ax. Crash! The window shutter
split and rattled to the floor inside. The silence then broke with a
hoarse, "What's thet?"

With all his might Jean swung the heavy ax on the door. Smash! The
lower half caved in and banged to the floor. Bright light flared out
the hole.

"Look out!" yelled a man, in loud alarm. "They're batterin' the back
door!"

Jean swung again, high on the splintered door. Crash! Pieces flew
inside.

"They've got axes," hoarsely shouted another voice. "Shove the counter
ag'in' the door."

"No!" thundered a voice of authority that denoted terror as well. "Let
them come in. Pull your guns an' take to cover!"

"They ain't comin' in," was the hoarse reply. "They'll shoot in on us
from the dark."

"Put out the lamp!" yelled another.

Jean's third heavy swing caved in part of the upper half of the door.
Shouts and curses intermingled with the sliding of benches across the
floor and the hard shuffle of boots. This confusion seemed to be split
and silenced by a piercing yell, of different caliber, of terrible
meaning. It stayed Jean's swing—caused him to drop the ax and snatch
up his rifle.

"DON'T ANYBODY MOVE!"

Like a steel whip this voice cut the silence. It belonged to Blue.
Jean swiftly bent to put his eye to a crack in the door. Most of those
visible seemed to have been frozen into unnatural positions. Jorth
stood rather in front of his men, hatless and coatless, one arm
outstretched, and his dark profile set toward a little man just inside
the door. This man was Blue. Jean needed only one flashing look at
Blue's face, at his leveled, quivering guns, to understand why he had
chosen this trick.

"Who're—you?" demanded Jorth, in husky pants.

"Reckon I'm Isbel's right-hand man," came the biting reply. "Once
tolerable well known in Texas.... KING FISHER!"

The name must have been a guarantee of death. Jorth recognized this
outlaw and realized his own fate. In the lamplight his face turned a
pale greenish white. His outstretched hand began to quiver down.

Blue's left gun seemed to leap up and flash red and explode. Several
heavy reports merged almost as one. Jorth's arm jerked limply,
flinging his gun. And his body sagged in the middle. His hands
fluttered like crippled wings and found their way to his abdomen. His
death-pale face never changed its set look nor position toward Blue.
But his gasping utterance was one of horrible mortal fury and terror.
Then he began to sway, still with that strange, rigid set of his face
toward his slayer, until he fell.

His fall broke the spell. Even Blue, like the gunman he was, had
paused to watch Jorth in his last mortal action. Jorth's followers
began to draw and shoot. Jean saw Blue's return fire bring down a huge
man, who fell across Jorth's body. Then Jean, quick as the thought
that actuated him, raised his rifle and shot at the big lamp. It burst
in a flare. It crashed to the floor. Darkness followed—a blank,
thick, enveloping mantle. Then red flashes of guns emphasized the
blackness. Inside the store there broke loose a pandemonium of shots,
yells, curses, and thudding boots. Jean shoved his rifle barrel inside
the door and, holding it low down, he moved it to and fro while he
worked lever and trigger until the magazine was empty. Then, drawing
his six-shooter, he emptied that. A roar of rifles from the front of
the store told Jean that his comrades had entered the fray. Bullets
zipped through the door he had broken. Jean ran swiftly round the
corner, taking care to sheer off a little to the left, and when he got
clear of the building he saw a line of flashes in the middle of the
road. Blaisdell and the others were firing into the door of the store.
With nimble fingers Jean reloaded his rifle. Then swiftly he ran
across the road and down to get behind his comrades. Their shooting
had slackened. Jean saw dark forms coming his way.

"Hello, Blaisdell!" he called, warningly.

"That y'u, Jean?" returned the rancher, looming up. "Wal, we wasn't
worried aboot y'u."

"Blue?" queried Jean, sharply.

A little, dark figure shuffled past Jean. "Howdy, Jean!" said Blue,
dryly. "Y'u shore did your part. Reckon I'll need to be tied up, but
I ain't hurt much."

"Colmor's hit," called the voice of Gordon, a few yards distant. "Help
me, somebody!"

Jean ran to help Gordon uphold the swaying Colmor. "Are you hurt-bad?"
asked Jean, anxiously. The young man's head rolled and hung. He was
breathing hard and did not reply. They had almost to carry him.

"Come on, men!" called Blaisdell, turning back toward the others who
were still firing. "We'll let well enough alone.... Fredericks, y'u
an' Bill help me find the body of the old man. It's heah somewhere."

Farther on down the road the searchers stumbled over Gaston Isbel. They
picked him up and followed Jean and Gordon, who were supporting the
wounded Colmor. Jean looked back to see Blue dragging himself along in
the rear. It was too dark to see distinctly; nevertheless, Jean got
the impression that Blue was more severely wounded than he had claimed
to be. The distance to Meeker's cabin was not far, but it took what
Jean felt to be a long and anxious time to get there. Colmor apparently
rallied somewhat. When this procession entered Meeker's yard, Blue was
lagging behind.

"Blue, how air y'u?" called Blaisdell, with concern.

"Wal, I got—my boots—on—anyhow," replied Blue, huskily.

He lurched into the yard and slid down on the grass and stretched out.

"Man! Y'u're hurt bad!" exclaimed Blaisdell. The others halted in
their slow march and, as if by tacit, unspoken word, lowered the body
of Isbel to the ground. Then Blaisdell knelt beside Blue. Jean left
Colmor to Gordon and hurried to peer down into Blue's dim face.

"No, I ain't—hurt," said Blue, in a much weaker voice. "I'm—jest
killed! ... It was Queen! ... Y'u all heerd me—Queen was—only bad man
in that lot. I knowed it.... I could—hev killed him.... But I
was—after Lee Jorth an' his brothers...."

Blue's voice failed there.

"Wal!" ejaculated Blaisdell.

"Shore was funny—Jorth's face—when I said—King Fisher," whispered
Blue. "Funnier—when I bored—him through.... But it—was—Queen—"

His whisper died away.

"Blue!" called Blaisdell, sharply. Receiving no answer, he bent lower
in the starlight and placed a hand upon the man's breast.

"Wal, he's gone.... I wonder if he really was the old Texas King
Fisher. No one would ever believe it.... But if he killed the Jorths,
I'll shore believe him."

Two weeks of lonely solitude in the forest had worked incalculable
change in Ellen Jorth.

Late in June her father and her two uncles had packed and ridden off
with Daggs, Colter, and six other men, all heavily armed, some somber
with drink, others hard and grim with a foretaste of fight. Ellen had
not been given any orders. Her father had forgotten to bid her good-by
or had avoided it. Their dark mission was stamped on their faces.

They had gone and, keen as had been Ellen's pang, nevertheless, their
departure was a relief. She had heard them bluster and brag so often
that she had her doubts of any great Jorth-Isbel war. Barking dogs did
not bite. Somebody, perhaps on each side, would be badly wounded,
possibly killed, and then the feud would go on as before, mostly talk.
Many of her former impressions had faded. Development had been so
rapid and continuous in her that she could look back to a day-by-day
transformation. At night she had hated the sight of herself and when
the dawn came she would rise, singing.

Jorth had left Ellen at home with the Mexican woman and Antonio. Ellen
saw them only at meal times, and often not then, for she frequently
visited old John Sprague or came home late to do her own cooking.

It was but a short distance up to Sprague's cabin, and since she had
stopped riding the black horse, Spades, she walked. Spades was
accustomed to having grain, and in the mornings he would come down to
the ranch and whistle. Ellen had vowed she would never feed the horse
and bade Antonio do it. But one morning Antonio was absent. She fed
Spades herself. When she laid a hand on him and when he rubbed his
nose against her shoulder she was not quite so sure she hated him. "Why
should I?" she queried. "A horse cain't help it if he belongs
to—to—" Ellen was not sure of anything except that more and more it
grew good to be alone.

A whole day in the lonely forest passed swiftly, yet it left a feeling
of long time. She lived by her thoughts. Always the morning was
bright, sunny, sweet and fragrant and colorful, and her mood was
pensive, wistful, dreamy. And always, just as surely as the hours
passed, thought intruded upon her happiness, and thought brought
memory, and memory brought shame, and shame brought fight. Sunset
after sunset she had dragged herself back to the ranch, sullen and sick
and beaten. Yet she never ceased to struggle.

The July storms came, and the forest floor that had been so sear and
brown and dry and dusty changed as if by magic. The green grass shot
up, the flowers bloomed, and along the canyon beds of lacy ferns swayed
in the wind and bent their graceful tips over the amber-colored water.
Ellen haunted these cool dells, these pine-shaded, mossy-rocked ravines
where the brooks tinkled and the deer came down to drink. She wandered
alone. But there grew to be company in the aspens and the music of the
little waterfalls. If she could have lived in that solitude always,
never returning to the ranch home that reminded her of her name, she
could have forgotten and have been happy.

She loved the storms. It was a dry country and she had learned through
years to welcome the creamy clouds that rolled from the southwest.
They came sailing and clustering and darkening at last to form a great,
purple, angry mass that appeared to lodge against the mountain rim and
burst into dazzling streaks of lightning and gray palls of rain.
Lightning seldom struck near the ranch, but up on the Rim there was
never a storm that did not splinter and crash some of the noble pines.
During the storm season sheep herders and woodsmen generally did not
camp under the pines. Fear of lightning was inborn in the natives, but
for Ellen the dazzling white streaks or the tremendous splitting,
crackling shock, or the thunderous boom and rumble along the
battlements of the Rim had no terrors. A storm eased her breast. Deep
in her heart was a hidden gathering storm. And somehow, to be out when
the elements were warring, when the earth trembled and the heavens
seemed to burst asunder, afforded her strange relief.

The summer days became weeks, and farther and farther they carried
Ellen on the wings of solitude and loneliness until she seemed to look
back years at the self she had hated. And always, when the dark memory
impinged upon peace, she fought and fought until she seemed to be
fighting hatred itself. Scorn of scorn and hate of hate! Yet even her
battles grew to be dreams. For when the inevitable retrospect brought
back Jean Isbel and his love and her cowardly falsehood she would
shudder a little and put an unconscious hand to her breast and utterly
fail in her fight and drift off down to vague and wistful dreams. The
clean and healing forest, with its whispering wind and imperious
solitude, had come between Ellen and the meaning of the squalid sheep
ranch, with its travesty of home, its tragic owner. And it was coming
between her two selves, the one that she had been forced to be and the
other that she did not know—the thinker, the dreamer, the romancer,
the one who lived in fancy the life she loved.