CHAPTER XXXV
THE MEETINGS OF TWO STRONG MEN
Matt Barger, riding in the night, intent upon nothing save the chanceto deal out his vengeance to Van Buren, had camped beside the river, atthe turn where Van and Beth had skirted the bank to the regular fordingbelow. The convict's horse, which Beth had lost, was tethered wherethe water-way had encouraged a meager growth of grass. Barger himselfhad eaten a snake and returned to a narrow defile in the range, wherehis ambush could be made.
To insure himself against all misadventure he rolled a mass of bouldersdown the hill, to block the trail. His barrier was crude butefficient. Neither man nor horse could have scaled it readily, and theslopes on either side were not only well-nigh perpendicular, they werealso built of crumbling stone that broke beneath the smallest weight.He labored doggedly, persistently, despite his half-starved condition,and when he had finished he looked to his gun, proceeded down the trailsome fifty yards or more, climbed the slope, and there in the rocks,where the walls gave way to a sandy acclivity, concealed himself towait.
The sun at noon found Van a mark for punishment. The day was thehottest of the season. The earth and rocks irradiated heat that dancedin the air before him. All the world was vibrant, the atmosphere ashimmer, as if in very mockery of the thoughts that similarly rose andgyrated in his brain. His horse was suffering for water. The riverwas still an hour away, so steep was the climb through the range.
The trail he would gladly have avoided, had such a course beenpractical. He had ridden here with Beth, and therefore the mockery wasall the more intense. His inward heat and the outward heat combined tomake him savage. There was nothing, however, on which to vent hisfeelings. Suvy he loved. Perhaps, he reflected, the horse was his onefaithful friend. Certainly the broncho toiled most willingly acrossthe zone of lifelessness to bear him on his way.
Up through the narrowing walls of sand and adamant they slowlyascended. Barger saw them once, far down the trail, then lost themagain as they rounded a spur of the shimmering hillside, coming nearerwhere he lay. He was up the slope a considerable distance--fartherthan he meant to risk a shot. His breath came hard as he presentlybeheld Van Buren fairly entering the trap.
Van's head had fallen forward on his breast. He looked at nothing.His face was set and hard. Barger raised his pistol, sighted down thebarrel--and repressed the impulse to fire as the horseman came onward,unsuspiciously.
No sooner was Van around the turn, where in less than a minute he wouldfind his progress blocked, than Barger arose and ran with all his mightdown the slope.
He let out a yell of exultation as he came to the trail. Van turned inhis saddle instantly, beholding the man in the pass. He knew thatsinister form.
His pony had bounded forward, frightened by the cry. Down went Van'shand to his own revolver, and the gun came up cocked for action.
One glance he cast up the trail ahead--and saw through Barger's trick.The _cul de sac_ was perfect, and the convict had halted to fire.
It made a singular picture on Van Buren's retina--that gaunt, savagebeing, hairy, wild of eye, instinct with hatred and malice, posingawkwardly, and the sun-lit barrel of polished steel, just before itsyawning muzzle belched lead and a cloud and a roaring detonation.
The bullet went wide, and Barger fired again, quickly, but moresteadily. That one landed. It got Van just along the arm, burning ina long, shallow wound that barely brought the blood.
Van's gun was down, despite Suvy's panic of cavortings. He pulled thetrigger. The hammer leaped two ways, up and back--but the gun made noreport, no buck, no cloud to answer Barger's. The cartridges,subjected to all that water of the day before, were worthless.
The third of Barger's shots was fired from a closer range, as the eagercreature closed in upon his enemy. It let the daylight enter Van'shat, near the top.
Van had snapped every shell in his weapon, with amazing rapidity--to noavail. The cylinder had flung around like a wheel, but the sounds werethose of a toy.
Barger was steadied in his tracks for better marksmanship. He hadheard that succession of metallic snaps; he knew he had Van Buren athis mercy. Three of his shots remained unfired, and a second, unusedpistol in his belt, with more ammunition. The fellow even smiled as hewas aiming.
There was one thing to do--and Van did it. He leaped his broncho cleanagainst the wall, then spurred him straight for Barger. The shot thatsplit the air again was splattered on the rocks. Before the convictcould make ready to avoid the charge, Suvy was almost upon him. Hepartially fell and partially leaped a little from the broncho's path,but was struck as the pony bounded by.
He yelled, for his leg was trampled and hurt by the pressure of Suvy'sshoe, nevertheless he scrambled to his feet at once, and fired wildlyat his man.
He emptied his gun, drew the other, and ran, too eager for his deed ofrevenge to halt and take a steady aim. A bullet punctured thebroncho's ear, and the blood flew back upon Van.
They were past the walls in the briefest time, and Van attacked theslope. Barger came after, yelling in rage. He tripped, and his hurtleg dropped him down.
Already wearied, and famished for drink, Suvy nevertheless rose to theneeds of the moment with a strength incredible. He scaled that sandy,treacherous slope like an engine built for the purpose. It was love,pure love for the master on his back, that steeled the mighty sinews inhis body.
Two shots and two bullets from below proclaimed renewed activitieswhere Barger was once more on his feet. But the man had lost too muchground to recover his advantage. He knew that Van Buren, with a horselike that, could win the high ridge and escape.
He raged; he cursed himself and his God, for this second failure of hisdeed. Then once again he abruptly thought of a chance whereby toredeem his galling failures. His man on the horse would be more thanan hour in reaching the river by the slopes. A man on foot could beathim there, and beat him across to the farther side, from which toattack with surer aim--from the cover of the willows by the ford. Theflood had subsided. This Barger knew. The water was hardly knee highon a man, and better than all, Van Buren would scarcely dream of such aplan as within the range of possibilities.
Laboriously, in a fever of impatience, Barger made shift, afterstrenuous work, to climb his barrier of rock. Then up to the summit ofthe trail he sped, and down on the farther side.
Meantime Van, disgusted with himself for riding away from a fight,could only revile his useless gun and excuse himself a trifle becauseof his defenselessness. The skirmish had served to arouse him,however, and for that he was thankful to the convict who had waited inthe pass.
Then he wondered how it came at all that Matt should have thus beenlying there in wait. The fellow must have been informed, to prepare soelaborate a trap. It hardly seemed as if a plot against his life couldexplain this trip that Beth had desired him to take. He could scarcelycredit a thing so utterly despicable, so murderous, to her, yet forwhat earthly reasons had she sent him on the trip with a letter thestage could have carried?
The thing was preposterous! No woman on earth could have sanctioned analliance with Barger. But--what of Bostwick--the man who had spent aportion of his time with the liberated convicts? A revenge like thiswould appeal to him, would seem to him singularly appropriate. Bethcould have lent her assistance to the plan without guilty knowledge ofan outcome such as this, and Bostwick--Beth knew that Barger was Van'senemy. He had told her so himself. Facts were facts. Her letter toGlen revealed her state of mind--and here was this attack, a plannedattack, proving conclusively that Barger had been prepared beforehandwith knowledge of the trip.
From having been depressed before, Van was made thoroughly angry. Thewhole thing was infamous, dastardly--and Beth could not be acquitted.Strangely enough, against the convict, Barger, the horseman felt nowrath. Barger had a grievance, howsoever mistaken, that was adequate.He was following his bent consistently. He had made his threat in theopen; he must plan out his work according t
o his wits. He was simply ahunted beast, who turned upon his hunters.
It was Bostwick on whom Van concentrated a rising heat--and he promisedthe man would find things warm in camp, and the fight only well underway.
Even when the summit was achieved, the broncho slacked off nothing ofhis pace. Sweat glistened wetly upon him. His bleeding ear was goingbackward and forward tremulously, as he listened for any word from Van,and for anything suspicious before them. Van noted a certainwistfulness in the pony's demeanor.
"Take it easy, boy," he urged in a voice of affection that the bronchounderstood. "Take it easy." He dismounted to lead the animal down theslope, since a steep descent is far more trying on a ridden horse thanclimbing up the grade. He halted to pat the pony on the neck, and givehis nose a rough caress, then on they went, the shadow they cast theonly shade upon the burning hill.
It was fully an hour after leaving the pass, where Barger had piled inthe rock, before the horseman and his broncho dropped again in thetrail that led onward to the river. Van was again in the saddle.Alert for possible surprises, but assured that his man could find noadequate cover hereabouts, he emerged from behind the last of the turnsall eagerness to give his horse a drink.
A yell broke suddenly, terribly, on the desert stillness. It came fromBarger, out in the river, on the bar--strangely anchored where he stood.
Van saw him instantly, saw a human fantastic, struggling, writhing,twisting with maniacal might, the while the horrible quicksand held himby the legs, and swallowed him, inch by inch.
"Fer Christ's sake--help!" the creature shrilled in his plight. He hadflung away revolvers, cartridges, even his coat, reducing his weightwhen the stuff only gripped him by the ankles. He was half to histhighs. He was sinking to his waist, and with all of his furiousefforts, the frightful sand was shuddering, as if in animalecstacy--some abominable ecstacy of hunger, voracious from long denial,as it sucked him further down.
"Fer Christ's sake, Van Buren--fer Christ's sake, man! I'm a humanbeing," shrieked the victim of the sand. "_I'm a human being_, man!"
Van had not hesitated by so much as a moment as to what he meant to do.He was off his horse in a leap. He paused for a second to looked aboutfor any accidental means of assistance the place might afford. Itafforded none. The man in the quicksand continued to yell, to strugglehopelessly, to sink in that shivering pool of life-engulfing stuff.
Then the horseman thought of his rope, the raw-hide lasso, alwayssecured upon his saddle. He snatched at the knots to tear it loose.
"Don't move--don't struggle!" he shouted at the man, and down towardthe edge he came running, the rope-noose running out as he sped.
He dared not step beyond the bank, and so involve himself. Barger waswell out from the edge. The throw at best was long and difficult.
"Hold up your hands, above your head!" he called. "Don't thrasharound!"
The convict obeyed. His haggard, bearded face was turned to Van like amask of horror. The eyes were blazing fearfully. The fellow'sattitude, as he held his hands above his head, and continued to sink,was a terrible pose of supplication--an awful eloquence of prayer.
Van threw--and the cast fell short.
Barger groaned. He had ceased to yell. He remained mutely holding uphis hands, while the cold abyss crept upward to his waist--the wet lipsswallowing, swallowing in silence.
Van jerked in the rope with one impatient gesture. He coiled itswiftly, but with nicety. Then round and round he swung the gapingloop--and threw with all his strength.
For a second the loop hung snake-like in the air, above the convict'shead. Then it fell about him, splashed the curdled sand, and waspulled up taut, embracing Barger's waist.
"Hoist it up under your arms!" called Van. "Try to move your legs whenI pull!"
He wasted no time in attempting to haul the convict out himself. Heled his pony quickly to the edge, took two half hitches of the ropeabout the pommel of the saddle, then shouted once more to his man.
"Ready, Barger. Try to kick your feet." To the horse he said: "Now,Suvy, a strong, steady pull." And taking the pony's bit in hand heurged him slowly forward,
It was wonderful, the comprehension in the broncho's mind. But thepull was an awful thing. The rope came taut--and began to be strained,and Suvy was sweating as he labored. Out on the end of it, bitten bythe loop, that slipped ever tighter about him, the human figure wasbent over sharply, between the two contending forces.
He let out one yell, for the pain about his chest--then made no furthersound. The rawhide rope was like a fiddle-string. It seemed absurdthat an anchor so small, so limber, in the sand, could hold so hardagainst the horse. Van urged a greater strain. He knew that the ropewould hold. He did not know how much the man could bear beforesomething awful might occur. There was nothing else to do.
It seemed a time interminable. No one made a sound. The queer,distorted figure out in the stream could have uttered no sound to savehis life. The silence was beginning to be hideous.
Then an inch of the rope came landward, as the broncho strained uponit. The anchor had started from its hold.
"Now! now!" said Van, and with quick, skillful urging he caught at theslight advantage.
Like an old, half-buried pile, reluctant to budge from its bed in sandand ooze, the human form was slowly dragged from the place. No corpse,rudely snatched from its grave, could have been more helplesslyinert--more stretched out of all living semblance to a man.
No corpse snatched from its grave could have been morehelplessly inert.]
Across the firmer sand, and through a lagoon of water, Barger washurriedly drawn. The pony was halted when the man was at the bank, andback to the convict Van went running, to loosen the bite of the noose.
Barger lay prostrate on the earth, his eyes dully blinking in the sun.His feet were bare. They had slipped from his boots, which were buriedbeyond in the sand. His face had taken on a hue of death. From hairto his ankles he was shockingly emaciated--a gaunt, wasted figure,motionless as clay.
Van fetched a pint of water in his hat. He sprinkled it roughly in theconvict's face, and, propping up his head, helped him to take a drink.
Barger could not lift a hand, or utter a word. Van recoiled the rope,secured it on the saddle, then sat down to await the man's recovery.It was slow. Barger's speech was the first returning function. It wasfaint, and weak, and blasphemous.
"It's hell," he said, "when God Almighty turns agin a man. Ain't thesheriff's enough--_without a thing like that_?" His thumb made agesture towards the river, which he cursed abominably--cursing it for atrap, a seeming benefit, here in the desert, ready to eat a man alive.
Van made no reply. He rather felt the man was justified--at least insome opinions. Towards Barger he felt no anger, but rather a pityinstead.
After a time the convict moved sufficiently to prop himself up againstthe bank. He looked at Van dully. This was the man who had "sent himup"--and saved him from the sand. There was much that lay betweenthem, much that must always lie. He had no issues to dodge. There wasnothing cowardly in Barger, despite his ways.
"I nearly got you, up yonder," he said, and he jerked his thumb towardsthe mountains, to indicate the pass where he and Van had met an hourbefore.
Van nodded. "You sure did. Who told you to look for me here?"
Barger closed his eyes. "Nothing doing." He could not have beenforced to tell.
Van smiled. "That's all right." There was no resentment in the tone.
Barger looked at him curiously.
"What for did you pull me out?"
"Don't know," Van confessed. "Perhaps I hated to have the quicksandcheat the pen."
"Must have had some good reason," agreed the prostrate man. He wassilent for a moment, and then he added: "I s'pose I'm your meat."
As before, Van nodded: "I reckon you are."
Barger spat. It was his first vigorous indication of returningstrength.
"Some
ways," he said, "I'd rather you'd shoot me here, right now, thansend me back to the pen. But I couldn't stand fer that!" He made hischaracteristic gesture towards the river. As Van made no comment thefellow concluded: "I s'pose you need the reward."
Van was aware there was ten thousand dollars as a price on theconvict's head, a fact which he someway resented. To-day, more than atany time within his life, he felt out of sympathy with law--with man'slaw, made against man.
He began to pull off his boots.
"No," he said, "I don't want any State's reward, much less expresscompany money. Maybe if it wasn't for those rewards I'd take you intocamp." He inverted his boots and shook out a few grains of sand.
Barger glanced at him suspiciously.
"What are you goin' to do with me, then, now you've got me to rights?"
"Nothing," said Van, "nothing this afternoon." He stood up. "You andI break even, Barger, understand? Don't take me wrong. I'm notturning you loose entirely. You belong to me. Whenever I call for thejoker, Matt, I want you to come."
He would never call, and he knew it. He merely left the matter thus toestablish a species of ownership that Barger must acknowledge. Thereis law of the State, and law of God, and law of man to man. The latterit was that concerned Van Buren now, and upon it he was acting.
Laboriously, weakly, Barger arose to his feet. He looked at Vanpeculiarly, with a strange light dully firing in his eyes.
"I agree to that," he answered slowly. "I agree to that."
He put out his hand to shake--to bind his agreement. It was almostlike offering his oath.
Van took it, and gave it his usual grip.
"So long, Barger," he said. "I reckon you need these boots."
He waved his hand loosely at the boots that lay upon the ground, wentat once to his horse, and mounted to his seat.
"The regular ford of this river's down below," he added to thespeechless convict, standing there gaunt and wondering upon the marge."So long."
Barger said nothing. Van rode away on the trail by the stream, and waspresently gone, around the bend.
The Furnace of Gold Page 35