* * *
The evening silence increased. The breeze had dropped. Nothing stirred. Even the horse was quiet. It’s lonely here, Esther Park thought. I’ll loosen the horse from the tree. Shall I begin riding back to the ranch? Or shall I wait some more? They must be coming soon to find me. She rose and turned towards the horse. But the horse was not there.
She ran up to the tree. The horse was not there.
“Where, oh, where?” she cried.
Had it smelled a bear, broken loose, gone galloping off?
“But I would have heard it,” she said. And there had been nothing to hear.
Then, because she had been thinking of bears for the last ten minutes, thinking how bravely she had lain still when she had fallen from her horse and the bear hadn’t come any nearer, and the startled horse had run away and then, later, had come back to stay beside her, she now became terrified. She was alone. She was helpless. She had no horse. The ranch was miles away. She was alone, and the forest up on the mountains was thick and menacing. She stood uncertainly. Then she gave a cry and began to run awkwardly in her heavy, high-heeled boots.
She didn’t run very far, for the wood near the stream had darkened in the lengthening shadow of the mountain. The path she had followed this morning was no longer clear. The wood was black and silent and filled with threats. She took ten paces into it. Then she knew she had lost the path. She stumbled back over a fallen tree and scattered twigs. She reached the glade again. The path was near here. But there seemed so many paths, so many openings through the trees that started closing around you once you stepped into them. On the other side of the stream there were deeper woods. Behind her was the mountain and its grim forest. A rabbit skeltered across the glade. She screamed. Then she called wildly. “Chuck, Chuck,” she called. She called the others too. But there was no one to hear. Then she screamed once more, and wept, and fell on the ground.
* * *
When the Indian camp had been made in the field overlooking Flying Tail Ranch John Running-Nose examined the horse which his son and his nephew had brought so quietly and carefully to join the others. And, like the other horses, it was hobbled to keep it from wandering.
“That’s a good one,” he said to his son. “Where did you find it?”
Harold said, “We found it near the Waiting Maiden.”
“A wild horse with a saddle growing on its back? They breed rich horses here.”
The group of old men in their high-crowned hats, and young men in low-crowned hats, burst into laughter. The shawled squaws, cooking pemmican into a broth over oil-stoves, giggled and put up a polite hand to cover their remaining teeth. The young girls, in tight blue jeans and tailored shirts, with their pretty dark hair hanging loose to their shoulders in glamour-bob style, looked up and smiled. They wore lipstick. And they didn’t have to hide their teeth, for they had grown up in orange-juice days. Then they went back to their tasks of helping the squaws, or of looking after the swarm of children that fell over each other, laughed, cried, giggled, sniffed, and fell over each other.
John Running-Nose was still waiting for an answer.
“At some distance off,” Harold said slowly, “there was a woman. She liked to sit and watch the mountains.” His father insisted on honesty between blood relations.
“He speaks the truth,” Cedric Slow-to-Move said, eyeing his father, who had the same standards as John Running-Nose.
Then John Running-Nose said to his son, “And where is your new buckle of the best silver?”
Harold looked at Pretty Smile his mother. “I lost it,” he said, and followed Pretty Smile into the family tepee, which held thirty on good nights, thirty-six at a crush.
* * *
“No sign?” Sally asked.
“Nothing,” Prender Atherton Jones said. He helped Mrs. Peel dismount. “It is almost dark now.” It is useless, his tone of voice said.
“Bert and Ned came back for lanterns. They’ve gone out again. Robb is still searching through Yellowrock Canyon.”
Carla and O’Farlan stood silently beside Sally. Grubbock had just ridden back too. He said quietly, “A human being is too small a thing to get lost in that rock pile.”
“What now?” Koffing asked.
Jackson said, “Lanterns, like Bert and Ned.”
Sally suggested, “Let’s wait until Jim finishes talking to the Indians.”
“They saw no one on their way here to the ranch,” Grubbock said. “Jim went and asked them specially, just before we rode out.”
“Well, they’ve been talking to him long enough since he came in.” Sally looked across at the barn, whose lighted doorway showed three Indians in full, resplendent dress. In the elaborate costumes they looked both majestic and terrifying. “Why have they put on their special clothes?” she asked.
Chuck said, “They are paying us a visit. I guess they came to give us an invitation to watch them dance. Sort of dress rehearsal for tomorrow, when they perform at the rodeo. They’re friends of Jim. Guess they kind of expected him to entertain them as usual. They made him a blood-brother ten years ago. Strong-Wind-in-the-Mountains they call him.”
“What’s the name they gave you?” Sally asked. Any talk was better than just staring at the dark hills and forests, thinking how vast they were.
“Now that’s a mighty strange thing,” Chuck said. “They give a name that fits. Or they give a name that’s opposite, so everyone knows it fits extra well. Like the wife of John Running-Nose. His name fits, but hers is Pretty Smile, and she’s had about three teeth in her head since she was sixteen and had her first son. That’s the opposite kind of name. See?” It’s good to keep talking, he thought, as he watched the strained faces about him. “Now, when it came to giving me a name, you’d be surprised what they thought up.”
“What?” Sally asked.
“They call me Long-in-the-Tongue. That’s a heck of a name.” And I don’t go spreading it around, either. Only, he thought, tonight’s different. “There’s Jim coming back now,” he reported suddenly.
Everyone turned to watch Jim, as if they could judge the news he brought by the way he walked. Behind him the three Indians were stalking back towards their camp in the growing darkness.
“What on earth had they to say?” Prender Atherton Jones asked angrily. “They’ve wasted more than ten minutes.”
“You can’t hurry that kind of talk,” Jim said. “But I did find out something. Two of their boys saw a woman. Just after five o’clock. Up on that small park called the Waiting Maiden.”
“But I was there,” Chuck burst out. “Or a couple of hundred yards at most from it. I hollered good and loud. There weren’t no woman on that hillside.”
“Cedric Slow-to-Move and Harold Running-Nose say they saw her.”
“They’re good boys,” Chuck admitted. “Truthful. Except when it comes to horses, like all Squeehawks. Say, Jim, they didn’t see any horse, did they?”
“That wasn’t mentioned. I got the feeling that the horse delayed our conversation a bit.”
“So them boys lifted it, saddle and all?” Chuck’s lips tightened. He looked as if he were trying hard to keep some well-chosen words from exploding.
“How can they behave like that?” Atherton Jones said, staring angrily at the receding figures of the Indians. Only two minutes ago he had been reflecting on the nobility of the Indian in all his array, making the white man (Jim, in this case) look insignificant. “A human life is at stake,” he went on, “and they hedge because of a horse which they don’t want to give up. I presume they have stolen it?”
“Take it easy,” Jim said sharply. “They’re good guys. They’re worried about this darned horse business, and they took a chance of losing it back to us when they came over here to tell us about Miss Park.”
“This is too involved for us to understand, Jim,” Mrs. Peel said appeasingly.
He gave her a smile. “I’m taking Jackson, and we are riding out with Bird-in-Hand, Two-in-the-Bush, Running-No
se, and Slow-to-Move. We’ll signal to Bert and Ned and Robb and get them off their trail. And I’ve an invitation for all of you to visit the Indian camp as their guests. Don’t ask me how they knew you were here. But they knew. And they knew about Mrs. Peel. They are sorry that their tribe doesn’t go in for initiating women, but they’ve got an honorary name chosen for her. Flowing Ink.” He lifted one of the lanterns that Jackson had lighted, and swung himself easily on to his horse. He paused only to look down at Atherton Jones and say, “Sure, the Indians have their little ways. And we have ours. Guess some of them don’t look too good either, sometimes.”
Never, Sally thought, had she seen Prender so properly silenced. Strong-Wind-in-the-Mountains had done it.
“We’ll all go back to the house and get everything ready,” Mrs. Peel said. “And I’ll ask the Indians to be our guests; then Mimi won’t catch pneumonia out in the night air. Perhaps they’ll dance on the lawn.”
“We’ll see how Esther is first,” Sally reminded her. And she wondered, as she thought of the mass of children playing over the hillside, whether an Indian camp might not be a better place for the party than a lawn and a house with many doors. Tonight was sufficiently complicated. This, Sally decided, is one time I’m going to say no to Margaret. Mimi could go wrapped up in blankets, which would be appropriate enough.
“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Peel said. “I’m afraid Flowing Ink went right to my head. But I don’t think Esther is hurt, do you? Jim seemed relieved, didn’t he?”
They all began talking. The sense of disaster was beginning to dissipate, and relief over Esther and excitement over the Indians took its place. “It’s wonderful!” Carla said about everything. And they all began to move towards the house.
“Coming?” Earl Grubbock asked Koffing.
“I’m still on duty.” He glanced at the horses. “Looks as if my job is just starting. Why didn’t you go out again with Jim and Jackson?”
“Couldn’t sit a horse any more,” Earl admitted frankly. “Guess this is something like sun-tanning: a second burn on top of the first one raises pure hell.” He looked at Chuck and tried a Western joke by way of general apology. “Got enough raw hide on my tail to make a brand new saddle.” And once, he thought, I used to pity the infantry. He set out determinedly towards the cabin.
Under cover of the darkness Chuck smiled openly. He had liked the way young Grubbock could keep his face straight. “See you later,” he called after him.
Karl was watching the lanterns moving swiftly out by the Timber Trail towards the Seven Sisters. “I wonder why she didn’t hear you,” he said. That stopped Chuck’s enjoyment of the joke. He went back to brooding over Esther Park. And why hadn’t she heard him? It was the kind of failure he didn’t like. He was going to think this one out.
* * *
The men, guided by the two subdued boys, rode out to find Esther Park. They rode quickly up the dark trail, but when they reached Laughing Creek and crossed over into the black wood their pace slackened. This path was treacherous by night.
Jim Brent called out to reassure her. There was no answer. He called again, as they came out of the wood and reached the glade.
“Isn’t here,” Hubert Slow-to-Move said, and looked at his son Cedric.
“She was here,” Cedric said, and his cousin Harold nodded.
They searched the ground by the light of the lanterns. The Indians pointed out where she had sat—there were scraps of silver paper and the crumpled wrappers of chocolate bars on the ground beside a rock. There, the Indians said as they came to a tree, she had lain down for a long time. Perhaps had slept. They said nothing of the obvious traces of a horse which Jim’s quick eye had noticed, too, by another lonely pine-tree. He said nothing either.
They all gathered together and talked. Daylight would be better. “It has to be tonight,” Jim said.
They gathered together again, and they talked some more. Then, with the lanterns held high, they began to search the ground more carefully.
“This way,” Chief Two-in-the-Bush said at last. It was difficult to judge at night, but he was sure she had taken this way.
“This way,” Chief Bird-in-Hand said almost simultaneously. He spoke with equal conviction. Then, in silence, they led the way over the crest of the sloping hill that sheltered the glade, through the scattered pine-trees, out into rough, open ground covered with boulders. The others followed, bringing the horses.
It was then that Esther Park wakened. First she heard the night wind sighing through the fir-trees. And then she saw the darkness above her, around her, blacker and deeper than it had been before she had fallen asleep. She sat slowly up on the rock where she lay. She had climbed there before the darkness fell, climbed to get away from the ground and the animals that haunted the ground. She felt tired and ill, hungry and sore. She had wept and shouted so long, before she had fallen into a deep sleep that was almost unconsciousness, that she had no strength left in her throat. But I must shout when they come, she told herself. They will see me easily on this rock. They must come... She lifted her eyes and stared wearily into the blackness that surrounded her. The tears were running down her cheeks once more. Then her body stiffened. Lights. Lights wandering down there on the hillside below the rock. Horses, there were horses, and there were men. She tried to call, and she couldn’t.
She tried to call again, but now she saw the two men with the lanterns. She saw the dark, frowning faces, the painted brows, the long thin plaits of hair, the tall feathers rising sharply from the narrow headbands. Indians. Indians pointing towards her, running towards her. She moaned in terror; she didn’t hear Jim Brent’s voice calling to her. She only heard the high-pitched shout of an Indian. She screamed and rose. She turned to run, forgetting the high rock on to which she had climbed; and she fell, still screaming, down into the darkness.
26
JIM BRENT TAKES CHARGE
Mrs. Peel, wrapped in a heavy wool dressing-gown, came into the kitchen to get warm. She placed the kettle on the electric stove in the pantry, and then sat down in Mrs. Gunn’s rocking-chair. It was four o’clock in the morning. The house had fallen into sleep at last. Mrs. Peel was supposed to be in bed too, but after she had made the coffee and drunk it she didn’t go back upstairs. She threw some kindling into the wood stove in the kitchen, and drew the rocking-chair to face the flames. The fire caught, and held. If it hadn’t, she thought, I might have burst into tears. That was how she admitted she was near the breaking-point. Then she found she was crying a little, anyway.
She was still sitting there, watching the flames, when Jim Brent came in.
“I saw the light, and thought I might be in time for a cup of coffee,” he said. And he had hoped it would be Sally who was in the kitchen. But he hid his disappointment. After a quick glance at Mrs. Peel’s face he went on talking while he searched for some dishes and bread and butter and the frying-pan. “Breakfast is what we need,” he said, and began cooking the eggs. “Well, the Squeehawks have gone. Robb, Chuck, and I saw them off. Rode as far as Flashing Smile with them.”
Mrs. Peel rose to help. She was quite calm now, and all traces of tears had been quietly wiped away, but she was white-faced and haggard. “Then you never got to bed?” she asked.
“We talked a bit after the dancing and singing was all over, and the women and children were packed off to sleep. Then, before dawn, they all began getting ready to move. They’ll reach Sweetwater in time to set up their camp near the Iropshaw and Flatfeet Indians—you’ll see quite a collection of tepees at the side of the rodeo field—and they’ll rest a bit, and then they’ll get ready to ride in the parade. The young girls won’t be dressed in blue jeans and cowboy shirts. They’ll be riding side-saddle in white buckskin dresses. Pity they couldn’t dress for you last night—too busy, I guess, setting up the tepees and cooking and keeping the children out of harm. But wait until you see them today: shawls of every colour, buckskin leggings and moccasins, all beaded and embroidered with porcupine quil
ls. They dye them every colour in the rainbow, you know.”
“I don’t think I’ll see the parade or the rodeo,” she said. “I don’t feel like it somehow.”
He pretended to be studying the slices of toast which Mrs. Peel had managed to burn.
“Just wait until you’ve had breakfast,” he advised her, “and had a short sleep, and got dressed, and driven down to Sweetwater. When you feel the sunshine and see all the laughing faces around you you’ll enjoy yourself too.”
Mrs. Peel shook her head, perhaps over her efforts at toast-making.
“Stop thinking about Esther Park,” he said. “She’s alive, isn’t she? And no thanks to her. The”—he controlled his language— “the silliest piece of stupidity... She could have followed Laughing Creek right downhill to where it joins Crazy Creek, and she could have been on the road. Then all she had to do was to keep the mountains on her left hand, and she would have been here by midday.”
“But she wouldn’t know where to keep the mountains,” Mrs. Peel said, remembering her own experiences on a trail.
“She had the mountains on her right when she rode out. Obviously you keep them on your left when you ride in.”
Mrs. Peel smiled faintly. “You make it sound easy, Jim.”
“It is. Good heavens, she was no distance at all from the ranch—five or six miles at the most.” It was easy, if you really wanted to find your way back. He looked at Mrs. Peel. I won’t tell her that unless I’ve got to, he thought.
“How long will it take a broken thigh to mend?” she asked.
“That depends on the person with the broken thigh.”
“And she may have other injuries. Dr. Clark said he would call us around six o’clock and give a full report.”
“Well, she’s in good hands. Three Springs Hospital is up to date. And it has had a lot of experience in broken thighs and smashed legs.” He set the plates of ham and eggs on the table. “Come and eat. And we’ll stop talking about her until we’ve been fed.”
Rest and Be Thankful Page 34