by Zane Grey
He scooped out a hole on one side, then on the other. Presently he reached under the tree and dug farther. In a few more moments he was able to drag Verde gently from under the log that had him imprisoned.
Then he knelt beside the still form, not daring to look at the white face. He placed a shaking, muddy hand on Verde’s breast. Verde’s heart was still beating faintly. Realization that his brother still lived made a giant out of Jake.
Sheathing the knife, he lifted the limp form in his arms and strode down to the trail.
The rain had let up a little. The dust was settling. And there came a brightening of the sky, one of the false hopes that such storms hold out in their early stages. As he reached the cabin he noted that the rain was changing to snow.
CHAPTER V
VERDE OPENED HIS eyes. He smelled smoke and heard the crackling of a fire. A roof of rough-hewn poles and split shingles slanted above him. He recognized the cabin, and then in a flash he recalled the chain of circumstances that had led to his presence there.
He lay on a couch of boughs in the corner of the cabin. A blanket covered him. Jake was not in the room. Verde felt that the lower parts of his limbs were dead. He had a locked, icy sensation in his breast. He found that he had free use of his hands, and could move his head without difficulty. Jake had removed his boots, one of which had been slit. A bloody ragged leg of his trousers hung over a bench.
The door of the cabin stood open. Verde saw whirling, thin-flaked snow. The ground bore a mantle of white, and the spruce trees looked spectral against the gray gloom. A sound of falling water filled the cabin.
Rapid footfalls struck his ear. The doorway darkened. Jake entered staggering under an enormous armload of fagots. He was wet, and brought in the dank odor of pine. Not until he had deposited the load of wood in a corner next to the huge stone fireplace did he observe that Verde was conscious.
“By glory — you’ve come to!” he exclaimed, and the haggard darkness of his face brightened in a homely grin.
“Reckon I have,” replied Verde. Speaking was difficult and his voice pitifully weak.
“It took so long,” said Jake, with immense relief. “I thought — I was afraid... Verde, are you sufferin’ — much?’
“Cain’t tell. Feel daid in my legs an’ sort of queer here,” rejoined Verde, indicating his breast.
“I’m thankful you’ve no orful pain like this mawnin’.”
“What time of day is it?”
“Late afternoon.”
“An’ I’ve been unconscious all day long?”
“You shore have.”
They looked long into each other’s face. Verde’s faculties were growing acute. He saw that Jake was laboring under an enormous strain. How strange! Jake was usually so cool, so easy, so sure.
“Jake, old boy, how bad am I hurt?”
“Turrible — bad — all right,” replied Jake, swallowing hard.
“Wal, just how and where?”
“There’s a cut on your head, clear to the bone. Your right leg is broke below the knee. One bone. I set thet — an’ got it in splints. But your — left leg—”
“Got you stumped, hey?” asked Verde as Jake shook his head and gulped.
“Smashed — an’ the bones splintered all to hell.”
“Ahuh! Must have bled a lot.”
“Bled? You shore bled like a stuck pig. But I got thet stopped.”
“Wal, is that all, Jake? Honest Injun now?”
“All I’m sure about. First off there was blood runnin’ from your mouth. That scared me. But you haven’t bled any more fer hours.”
“Ahuh!... An’ what else are we up against, old boy?”
Jake lifted his hands in a helpless, half-frantic gesture of despair.
“Verde! If the avalanche didn’t shut us in forever we’re shore snowed up for the winter.”
“I was figurin, somethin’ like,” replied Verde quietly, and closed his eyes. He could not endure to look at Jake any longer, just then. Jake was more than appalled by the tragedy. And Verde began to ponder over a meaning for it.
“Verde, you asked me to be honest,” went on Jake hesitantly. “An’ I’m tellin’ you — only a miracle can save us.”
Verde noted that Jake used the plural. Perhaps it was only a slip of speech in the seriousness of the moment. Still the implication of a prayer for that one saving miracle was strong. From under his half closed eyelids Verde watched Jake as he busied himself over the cooking utensils and the fire. Anyone who knew Jake could have told that he was not himself. He was restless, exceedingly nervous, now hurried and again abstracted. He would seem to forget the meal he was preparing and then he would suddenly remember it. He walked aimlessly about the room, took up tasks irrevelant to hour and left them abruptly, unfinished. He went outdoors and returned for no reason that was evident. Once he came in with an armload of wood, only to carry it out again. And always the only consistent action he seemed to be performing was to turn every little while tragic, deep-set, fearful eyes in the direction of Verde.
At last he managed to get supper ready.
“Verde, can you eat or drink?” he asked.
“I crave cold water. Thet’s all. Put some snow in it,” replied Verde.
Jake brought it and set it at Verde’s elbow.
The afternoon waned and soon night fell. The soft, seeping, sweeping, rustling sound of falling snow almost imperceptibly increased. Around the eaves of the cabin and in the spruces the wind sighed mournfully. From the heights came the faint roar of the storm.
Jake sat in the firelight and Verde watched him. It must have continued so far a long time. Often Jake would replenish the dying fire, which would crackle and flare up and again light up the cabin. It seemed to Verde that Jake was trying not to surrender to a situation that he knew was hopeless. First the natural shock following the desperate accident to Verde, and now the realization of their being shut in, surely lost together. Verde read it all in Jake’s dark face.
Jake had meant to kill him. He had wanted him dead! In the humiliation of being whipped before their friends and relatives, and in the jealousy of the hour, and in the subsequent recognition that Kitty Mains loved him no more than she loved Verde, Jake had succumbed to the lust to kill.
When Verde sent word to Jake that he knew where to find him if he wanted satisfaction, Verde had hoped nothing more would come of it. Nothing more except that Kitty should choose one of them! He had hoped, but he had doubted. And here they were, doomed by the avalanche to the same fate. And poor Jake had awakened too late from the horror of his hate for him. It was Jake’s fault they had come to Black Gorge at a season when they should have shunned it. His fault, too, the horror of Verde’s crushed legs and the lingering death to come!
In the dark lonely hours of that night, when the flickering firelight played upon Jake’s tortured face, Verde learned how awful it must be for Jake. For himself he did not care. Even if he could have been saved he would not have welcomed it. What good of life hobbling about on maimed legs? But for Jake’s sake he began to want to live. And as the hours dragged by this desire grew.
Toward morning Jake tiptoed over to peer down at Verde, and then, thinking him alseep, he lay down beside him, very quietly.
But Verde was far from asleep. The pangs of agony had reawakened in his numbed leg. The fire flickered, casting its fantastic shadows on the rude walls of the cabin, flickered, faded, and died. Then blackness reigned. Outside the snow seeped and whirled and, with silky rustle, beat against the cabin. Sometimes vagrant flakes blew through the little window and fell cool wet upon Verde’s face. The wind mourned. Once when it lulled Verde heard the wild, lonely cry of a wolf.
Verde’s body seemed weighted by lead. The desperate desire to move had to be yielded to. And the slightest movement of his lower muscles was equivalent to plunging ten thousand red-hot spikes into his quivering flesh. But he endured, and fought the strange indifference that stole over his mind.
He must li
ve for Jake’s sake. Jake — who had wanted him dead! What a queer thing — that Jake could have imagined that he would be happier with his old friend out of the way!
CHAPTER VI
DAWN BROKE. VERDE was careful to look wide awake and more cheerful when Jake turned to him.
“How are you, Verde?”
“A rarin’ to go — if we only could,” replied Verde. “Pile out, Jake, an’ when you’ve had breakfast I want to talk to you.”
“Verde! You’re not sinkin’?”
“Would you expect me to be soarin’? I haven’t sprouted wings yet,” returned Verde.
Jake moved about with a synthetic haste that would have been ludicrous if it had not been so pathetic. Every one of his actions proved that he believed his earnestness futile.
“Open the door an’ let’s look out,” said Verde.
Black Gorge was now white, except for the lake which had risen nearly to the edge of the bench.
“Reckon it won’t snow heavy down heah,” rejoined Jake.
“Is the air cold? I don’t pear to feel it.”
“Nope. It’s warm yet, an’ that means more snow. But winter shore has set in.”
“Wal, Jake, let’s talk,” replied Verde. “Leave the door open so it’ll be light.”
Jake drew a bench to Verde’s bedside and looked down upon him with the miserable eyes of a dog that knows it has been beaten.
“All right, Verde, I’ll listen,” he said. But there was not the slightest indication of hope in look or tone.
“What’s to be done?” asked Verde brightly.
Jake spread wide his hands with an air of dejection.
“Jake, you’ve got it figgered this way,” went on Verde. “Nobody could get to us, even if they knew where we are. We cain’t climb out in the snow. An’ I’ve got to die pronto — an’ then you’ll starve to death?”
“Not starve, Verde,” returned Jake hoarsely. But he had acquiesced with Verde’s summary of the situation. He dropped his face in his big broad hands, and tears trickled between his fingers.
“Miracles do happen, Jake,” said Verde.
Jake made a sharp gesture of despair.
“Yes. Dad might find us. But even so — he couldn’t save you.”
“Old boy, is that what matters so much?” asked Verde softly.
“Reckon it’s all — that — matters,” replied Jake brokenly.
“Well, then, you must be up an’ doin’.”
“Verde, my mind’s stopped workin’.”
“Mine hasn’t, an’ don’t you forget it,” returned Verde. “Mine’s just begun... Jake, you know that my leg as it is — all smashed — will soon mortify. An’ it’d kill me pronto.”
“Hell man! You needn’t tell me that,” Jake replied.
“You’ve got to cut off my leg,” returned Verde slowly and evenly.
“My Gawd, Verde!... I — I couldn’t,” gasped Jake.
“Sure you could. Now think sense, Jake. It’s my only chance. You could cut it off — If I told you how — an’ if I’d stand it.”
Jake was pale and sweating. His big hands opened and shut. His homely, battered face was working.
“Yes. I might. It’s this idea that takes my nerve... You — you might die while I was doin’ it!”
“Of course I might. That’s the chance. But I think I wouldn’t. An’ it’s damn sure I’ll die if you don’t. Let’s take the chance — my only chance.”
“Lord, if I had the nerve!” cried Jake, and he leaped up to pace the room.
“Come back here... Now listen,” went on Verde, growing inspired with his plan. “I’ll tell you it’s a great idea. An’ you can do it!”
“How about the big arteries in your leg?” Jake boomed. “I had one hell of a time stoppin’ the bleedin’.”
“You mustn’t let me bleed any more.”
“How about — that splintered bone?”
“You’ll saw it off above the break were it’s smashed.”
“Saw! We haven’t anything’ but the big crosscut saw. It’d be impossible to use that.”
“There’s a three cornered file we brought to sharpen that saw. You’ll make a saw out of your big huntin’ knife.”
“How?” burst out Jake incredulously.
“File the back of it into sharp saw teeth.”
“Reckon I might,” muttered Jake doubtfully. Still the idea was sinking in. “But even if I... Verde, you forget the worst danger.”
“Boy, this is my leg an’ my life. You can gamble I’m not forgettin’ anything!”
“But blood poisonin!... That couldn’t be prevented. We’ve nothin’ to—”
“Wrong. We’ve got fire!” flashed Verde.
Jake stared at him, dominated by Verde’s tremendous force.
“Fire?” he echoed.
“Listen. You’re sure thick-headed. All we got to do is plan it right — then work fast. My job is to bear it — yours to make it a clean, quick one... You’ll sharpen both our huntin’ knives. Sharp as razors. You’ll file the back of the long blade into a saw. Then you’ll scour a pot an’ heat water to boilin’. You’ll put the knives in that. Then you’ll have your straight brandin’ iron in the fire. It must be red hot. Shore you know how slick you are with a brandin’ iron?... Wal, now. You’ll make sure where to cut my leg above the mashed place. You’ll bind it tight, so it cain’t bleed. Then when all’s ready you’ll cut the flesh all around, quick an’ clean, clear to the bone. Then you’ll saw through the bone. Then you’ll grab your red-hot brandin’ iron and burn the stub across. That’ll sear bone an’ arteries an’ flesh. You’ll loosen the cord, an’ wrap up my leg in a clean towel or shirt... An’ that’s all.”
“That’s all!” blazed Jake. “Good Gawd, Verde!... Can you stand it?”
“I can an’ will, old boy. I reckon it’ll not be as bad as we think. For there’s not much feelin’ left in that leg.
“When?” gasped Jake. The excitement of the idea had gripped him. The thought that there might still be a chance to save Verde’s life was all-consuming.
“Right now!” replied Verde. He had convinced Jake to undertake the terrible responsibility! Convinced him by persuasion, and in the end by falsehood, because during the excitement of this discussion the numbed leg had revived to exquisite pain. But Verde swore in his soul that he would endure and live.
Jake became actuated by supreme, uplifting, galvanizing hope. He was a changed man. Swiftly, quick and hard, he went at the preliminary tasks. He built a roaring fire. He scoured a big iron pot until it shone. He filled it with water and put it on to boil. He scraped all the rust off the branding iron, gave it a polish, and then thrust it in the heart of the red coals. Next he sharpened the knives, and filed the back of the blade of the long one. He was deft and sure, absorbed in each task. It took a long time to notch the blade into a saw and to sharpen the notches, but at last he was satisfied.
“Let me see it, Jake,” asked Verde.
It was a ten-inch blade, worn thin from use. Verde felt the sharp teeth.
“Wal, Jake, that’ll do the trick pronto,” said Verde as coolly as if it was the bone of a horse or steer they were talking about.
“Lucky I’ve some clean soft shirts,” returned Jake. “Ma put them in my bag.”
“Good. Tear one up into strips.”
“Now, what next?” asked Jake, rolling up his sleeves.
“You’ll want my leg on somethin’ solid. Knock off the top of the bench.”
Jake did so, and stripping off the blanket that covered Verde he slipped the board under his shattered leg.
“Verde, ought I to tie you?” asked Jake in solemn earnestness.
“No, Jake, I’ll not make a fuss. Don’t worry about me. Just you have everythin’ ready — then be quick. Make it a clean job. Savvy?”
“I’ll have it off quicker’n you can say Jack Robinson,” replied Jake.
The boyhood term, used so unconsciously, recalled to Verde the faraway past.
A ponderous blackness seemed to float slowly before Verde’s sight. The cabin was dim, vague, like the unreality of a dream.
He lay like a stone, with no power to move, yet his body seemed aquiver in a mighty convulsion of nerves — a million shocks of agony that ranged through him. A tremendous current swelled and burned in his marrow, like a boring worm of fire, up his spine, into his brain.
CHAPTER VII
IT WAS NIGHT, and outside the storm moaned and wailed and raged. The shadows cast by the fire flickered their last; the red glow of the dying embers faded.
Jake had fallen into the sleep of exhaustion.
But Verde was hovering on the verge of a great and eternal sleep. He knew that death for him was very close. He felt the cool sweet winds of oblivion; he saw the wide, vacant, naked hallway of the beyond, the dim, mystic spiritland; he had heard the strange alluring voices. He had only to let go. And every atom of his racked body clamored to be freed. But Verde held on.
It came a thousand times — that wraithlike presence, the specter that contended with Verde’s unquenchable will. And then it came no more.
CHAPTER VIII
ONE MORNING VERDE awoke from a deep slumber that had followed his night of agony.
The storm was over, a marble-white and glistening world of snow shone dazzlingly bright from the cabin doorway. Verde heard the sharp ringing of an ax. He saw that one end of the cabin was neatly stacked with firewood. A cheerful blaze crackled on the hearth.
Verde felt a surge of life within him. The crisis was past. The pangs of his poor maimed body were innumerable; but the great rending torture had ebbed and passed away.
Jake entered to greet him with a glad shout.
Another day Verde began to take nourishment that Jake most carefully prepared, and sparingly doled out.
“Shore you’re hungry,” he agreed, with his eager smile. “But I cain’t let you eat much yet. An’ for that matter we’re both goin’ to get good an’ damn hungry before the snow melts.”
“Reckon I forgot,” replied Verde in his weak voice. “How are we fixed for grub?”