Valley of Outlaws

by Max Brand

He merely set his teeth, and, steadying the mare, he put her at the front fence and cleared it. At the very peak of that leap the rifle clanged. It was as though a hand had snatched the hat from the head of Terry Shawn; his hair blew freely backward as the mare came down inside the yard.

  And there was Terry, leaning from the saddle, above Kitty Bowen. Bowen himself on the verandah, twice raised his rifle to his shoulder, and twice he lowered it again.

  “Do you hear, Kitty?” said the outlaw. “I’ve thought the thing over. I’m not fit for you. I’ve tested myself, and I couldn’t stand the test. I’ve showed that my word’s no good. And I’m going to leave you free. There’s ten thousand men all worth more to you than I am. God bless you, dear. Forgive me, and forget me!”

  He leaned lower, kissed the pale face that was turned up to him, and started the mare away with a deep thrust of the spurs. He could not swing immediately to the right and out of the yard, for the sheriff was rushing close behind him. Instead, he bolted along the side of the house, leaped the rear fence, and swerved among the sheds behind the place.

  Then, bearing to the right, he headed up the valley again and thanked the kind fortune that made the sheriff follow blindly, like a bulldog, in his tracks. The whole front portion of the parade had gone with Lank Heney. And a year of time and trouble would be needed to repair the damage that plunging hoofs had done to the garden of Mr. Bowen.

  The last of the stream of riders had not had time to get up to the house before Shawn was away, and these swung to the side and made straight on after the flying mare and her rider.

  Behind him, too, came Lank Heney and the rest of his best mounted riders. A few had come to grief at the fences, but four or five remained in the race, and these joined with the dozen or more laggards who unexpectedly found themselves in the fore of the chase.

  They were in easy pistol range now, and, as the least speedy horses in the posse began to fall back once more while the mare straightened up the ravine, the riders pulled their Colts and opened with a shower of bullets. There was no defense for Shawn except to lie on the neck of the good mare and trust to luck.

  Certainly her strong heart could be trusted. Unfalteringly she strode. Her neck and shoulders had been whipped to a lather by the chafing of the reins, and her sides were wet, but still she kept in her stride and held her head straight before her, as a good horse should. And the heart of Terry Shawn swelled with gratitude for the noble creature’s effort.

  In the olden days, men hard pressed for their lives were apt to pledge themselves to some sort of good work—to a candle to be lighted, say, at the shrine of some patron saint, or a large donation to the poor, or perhaps they would take on some vow of penance.

  Terry Shawn, riding for his life in this 20th Century, looked upward to the blue of the sky and pledged in his heart of hearts: If ever I settle down in a place, I’m going to put one field apart for broken-down ponies. I’ll take ’em deaf and blind and lame, and I’ll turn ’em out on grass all summer, and I’ll take ’em in and feed ’em all winter. I’ll groom ’em myself, and doctor ’em myself. And if ever I have a son, I’ll teach him to be a man by letting him watch a proper horse work.

  He had crossed the wide open stretch above the Bowen house now, and the woods were just before him, but, jockey the mare as he would, he was unable to draw her ahead of the pursuit. Only her brave spirit enabled her to keep to a gallop, and, although it was true that she had beaten off the great majority of the riders who followed, still, Lank Heney on his strong-limbed mustang and five other men, close behind, stuck in the traces of the mare and now—bitterly the outlaw admitted it—they were gaining. It was not a swift or sudden gain, but very steady and sure, and Shawn felt that his last day had surely come—indeed his last hour, unless a miracle happened.

  Out of the dense copse before him, Shawn saw the twinkle of the sun on a long rifle barrel before the weapon clanged. His Colt was in his hand at first sight of that glinting peril, but the instant the rifle cracked he knew that it had not been aimed at him, for, far behind, he heard a loud yell of pain.

  He glanced back and saw one of the posse trying to pull up his mustang with one hand while the other arm dangled helplessly beside him. Still Lank Heney and the rest poured on, and a crash of guns answered that single bullet. A twitch of Shawn’s shoulder and another at the side of his coat told him that he had been shaved twice by death. Then the rifle rang before him again, and, once more glancing back, he saw a horse and man go down in a heap. The rider spun head over heels, came blindly staggering to his feet again, only to pitch on his face and lie still—badly stunned, beyond a doubt, and very lucky not to have broken his neck in such a fall.

  Even the resolution of Lank Heney was not strong enough to give him courage to ride on into the face of such deadly marksmanship as this. There were four fighting men left, but against them they had that hidden rifleman and Terry Shawn, whose value as a gunman was attested by the price upon his head.

  Lank Heney, maintaining a steady fire with his revolver, swerved to the side, and his three followers turned in the other direction, heading for cover.

  So Shawn’s staggering mare came in under the shelter of the trees, and José, laughing with delight, joined his companion.

  The bay mare dropped at once to a dog-trot, and her rider pulled her back to a walk, and, leaning down, loosened the cinches. Five minutes’ quiet breathing while the sheriff and his men rode through the woods, hunting them, might give the bay new life.

  In the meantime he turned to José. “You, José!” he said roughly. “Why did you do that?”

  The Mexican grinned broadly.

  “In my country, señor, we are very kind to wild children.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Checked by the deadly fire of the Mexican, nevertheless the sheriff did not hesitate long, but forged ahead through the trees in order to come again on the traces of the fugitives. Well and keenly did he hunt for sign of the two, but, although he ranged well up the ravine, he did not find what he wanted. There were trails, to be sure, but they looked a day old—some might be even older.

  The reason was simply that José and his companion remained in the woodland covert, and only when their horses were well rested did they drift to the side of the ravine and take shelter in a little blind corner of the cañon wall. So, when the patient sheriff came back down the ravine and combed the forest, he found nothing whatever and was forced to turn his face toward Lister again.

  In their hiding, the two remained that night, for, although José was eager to go on toward the higher mountains, Shawn insisted that they wait. Fresh horses, he declared, would be better than a long start. So they rubbed down their mounts, and saw to it that they had excellent grass for grazing.

  Before it was dark, Shawn tried his hand once more with Sky Pilot.

  On the lead, or grazing in the little pasture that they had found, the chestnut was quiet as a favorite child, and, even when the cinches were drawn up, he merely grunted and stamped in a mild ill-humor. But when the outlaw leaped into the saddle, Sky Pilot tried to climb the sky. He was checked, somewhat, by the long rope with which José held him, but inside that limited radius he fought like a lion. For ten mortal minutes Shawn stuck to the saddle. Then, battered, broken, dizzy, he was hurled from his stirrups and lay in a heap. Had he not fallen in limp unconsciousness, he must certainly have broken his neck. Even as it was, José had to work over him until night was dark about them before he wakened and sat up with a feeble groan.

  Later they sat, side-by-side, and smoked—Shawn with his head leaning back against a tree trunk, a very battered man, indeed.

  “So it was with me,” explained José. “I was a rider, señor. I laughed at the wild horses that were brought in from the range . . . horses that had run free for eight or ten years. They could not buck me off any more than they could buck their skins off. The chestnut was different. I used to tie him to a tree and try to ride him. But he bucked in a circle around it, and finall
y I would go down. I had only one care . . . to fall on the outside of the circle and roll out of his reach. Otherwise, he would have killed me as I lay on the ground. A hundred times I have tried that.

  “You see this left leg is crooked. It was broken below the knee by the colt. I made splints with my own hands and tied up the colt. For a month, for six weeks, I crawled about and lived like an animal. I ate roots. I trapped little birds and ate them raw. But finally I could walk again. You see this scar across my forehead . . . that is where he flung me on a rock. I have had five ribs broken. Three times a collar bone has snapped. I have lain in pain and misery, on account of him, for a whole year, nursing myself, crawling out in wind and snow to forage like a beast. Tell me, señor, why I have not killed him long ago?”

  Shawn was silent; he was almost too sick for speech. José turned toward the place where the chestnut was grazing contentedly and began to curse his horse with a soft and solemn eloquence.

  They slept afterward, and in the gray morning they prepared to ride again.

  They left the cañon and journeyed straight across the hills toward the house of Joe, where they could find food and get the latest news, and where they would not be apt to be hunted. On the way, José spoke of the subject nearest his heart.

  “You have told me, my friend, of the old man of the mountain who made the chestnut as docile as a child?”

  “I have. I saw it, José.”

  “Let us go up to him, then. If he has made the horse obedient once, perhaps he can do so again . . . and we, Don Terry, will watch and learn what he does.”

  There was no objection from Shawn. He hardly cared what trail he followed now, so long as it led away from Lister and Kitty Bowen.

  So they rode in wretched silence across the hills. There was no fog this morning. Instead, the sky was coated with pale gray clouds, and a steady mist of rain fell—a cold rain blowing steadily out of the north and turning their hands numb upon the reins. The two saddle horses plodded on with downcast heads, submitting to misery, but the chestnut danced and pranced through the storm with a heart as light as a feather.

  “Why should he be sad?” said the Mexican, gloomily watching the colt. “Men are the masters of everything, and he is a master of men. Therefore he laughs. He is outside the law of horses, señor, which says that they must work and obey. We, too,” philosophized José, “are outside the law, but still we are not free. Is not that true? If we escape from men and the jail, still the sky sends its rain on us, and the wind to cut us to the bone . . . and we are starved and beaten. We say that we are free, but still we are slaves. Tell me, señor, if I have said the truth?”

  Shawn did not answer, but there was a deadly verity in what his companion had said, and in his heart he admitted it fully.

  However, they now saw the shack of Joe, half drowned in the rain mists before them, and they brought their horses to a gallop until they came to the door of the little house. Joe appeared at the same instant, dragging in a log for firewood, his mustang hitched to the timber with a line.

  He greeted them with a silent wave of the hand.

  “Don’t talk to him,” said Shawn softly to the Mexican. “He’s looking black this morning. Every man who lives alone like this has his ups and downs, and Joe is down this morning.”

  So, with hardly a word spoken, they took their places at a little table and let Joe serve them with food.

  The meal was eaten in continued silence. Only, when they rose to depart, Shawn pressed a little sheaf of bills into the hand of his host.

  “It’s a rainy day,” he explained, “and here is something to warm you up a little, Joe.”

  “I don’t want it,” answered Joe gruffly, passing back the money.

  “You don’t understand, old fellow,” said Shawn. “I’m flush. I’m not broke, Joe. Take that and you’re welcome to it. There are other places where I can drop in and get a meal from time to time, but I’m never sure of the people. You’re the only one that I can count on.”

  “You’ve counted on me for the last time,” returned Joe.

  Shawn tried to smile, searching for the jest, but the face of Joe remained utterly grim.

  “I’m through with you,” he explained slowly. “I never minded when you raised all kinds of trouble, except this last kind, kid. Now I’m finished.”

  “What kind?” asked Shawn eagerly. “Lifting money from a set of crooked gamblers, Joe? Do you balk at that?”

  Joe turned aside in disgust. “You know what I mean,” he said shortly.

  But Shawn followed him and turned him about. “I’ve got no idea at all,” he said earnestly.

  “The next time,” cried Joe in a burst of anger, “when the boys take after you, I’m going to be riding with them, and I’ll have my gun on tap. Is that clear to you?”

  “What on earth has happened?” asked Shawn.

  “Nothing,” said Joe. “To you it ain’t a thing. To take a fine girl away from her home without a by your leave . . . that ain’t worth thinking about, to you!”

  “Take a girl from her home . . . what are you talking about, man?”

  Joe pointed a grimy forefinger accusingly at Shawn. “What did you do with her?” he asked savagely.

  “With whom?”

  “Where did you take her?” insisted Joe.

  “Will you tell me who you mean?”

  “It makes me utterly despise you to have you dodge me like this,” said Joe. “Who would I mean but Kitty Bowen. Where is she?”

  “At her home, where I last left her, I suppose. Of course she’s there.”

  “Is she?” snarled Joe. “And that’s why old Bowen is ridin’ over the hills, half crazy with grief? And that’s why the boys are promising you a rope this time? And that’s why I’m going to help them get you, Shawn. Just because you left her at her home, where you found her? You don’t think you can bamboozle me like that, do you?”

  “Kitty Bowen. Kitty Bowen . . .” breathed Terry. “Do you mean it, Joe?”

  Here José put in honestly: “It is not true, señor. I myself have been with Don Terry all this day. She has not been with us.”

  “Greaser,” said Joe more savagely than ever, “do you think that your lying makes any difference to me? The pair of you are cut out of one kind of cloth, and it’s a kind that I’ve got no use for. Do you understand? Shawn, I never want to see you again, except in jail!” And turning on his heel, he stalked out of the house, mounted his horse, and rode off into the mist of rain.

  Shawn followed to the doorway and looked after him until he was out of sight. Then he mutely signaled to his companion and led the way back to their horses.

  “But it is wrong!” cried José. “You have not told them, my friend! You have not explained that they’re wrong! She is not with us!”

  There was no answer from Shawn until they had covered the first long mile toward Mount Shannon. Then he said sadly: “What good is talking, José? What good is the word of a crook? Only . . . where could she be?”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  They took the first straight trail toward the distant heights of Mount Shannon, and that way took them at once into the mouth of a cañon. It was ordinarily as quiet and commonplace as any of the half hundred ravines that split and wrinkled the face of the big mountain, but now it was transformed. That misty rain, which wrapped the plains and the lower hills, apparently had fallen in thick and solid torrents on the breast of the upper mountain, so that now a great stream was bounding and thundering down the valley. Stones the size of a man’s fist were whirled along close to the surface, and, deeper down, heavy boulders staggered and turned before the blast of the current.

  José blinked and shook his head at this uproar, but the confusion and the crashing fitted oddly with the humor of Terence Shawn, for heart and brain were consumed in the contemplation of his own woes. To his superstitious mind it appeared that all his troubles came from his first meeting with the chestnut colt. Or was it, indeed, that the strange deaf-mute who lived
in the wilderness on Mount Shannon had put some sort of curse upon him because he took the chestnut away? There was enough superstition in Shawn to make him cringe at this idea.

  So beset was his mind with these ideas that he took no heed of anything around him except the crash of the water down the ravine, and the occasional fall of a distant rock down the cañon walls. It was José who struck his shoulder sharply in warning and then turned his horse aside from the trail, leaping it into a thicket.

  When Shawn had followed and cast an inquiring eye at his companion, José pointed, and through the foliage, far down the trail, Shawn could see two riders hurrying up the valley.

  “Head hunters!” said Shawn savagely. “José, we’ll talk to those fellows. Head hunters they are indeed, José! Why else would they be riding horses like that?”

  For as the pair drew nearer it could be seen that they rode magnificent long-limbed horses, plainly of good breeding, and certainly not the type that usually is used for knocking about through the thickets and the rocks of the mountains.

  “Do you know them?” murmured Shawn a moment later.

  “I never have seen them, my friend.”

  “I’ll tell you. It’s Hack Thomas and Jim Berry. They’ve worked with me in the old days. They’ve been pals of mine. I saw Hack out of Tucson one day when a hundred wild men were trying to take his scalp. I backed him up and covered him until he could get started. There’s Berry, too. I’ve staked him twice . . . I’ve worked beside him, too. What difference do the old times make when there’s a price on a man’s head? No difference at all. Joe, too. He pretends it’s because of the girl, but it ain’t. He wants his chance to get in on the easy money. The price of a lucky bullet brings in five thousand for him. Do you see, José? But I’m going to make that pair wish that they’d never ridden on my trail. We’ll lie low till they get past. Look at ’em. They’re reading my trail.”

  So spoke the outlaw, his fury growing fast, for, as the two came up the trail, it was plain to see that they leaned from the saddle time after time to read the sign before them. They came closer—two tall, thin-faced, dark men, enough alike to have passed for twin brothers, each riding with a matchless grace, each armed to the teeth with Bowie knife, revolvers, and the inevitable long Winchester that usually was carried in the holster under the right leg, but which these hunters now kept exposed, balancing the weight across the pommels of their saddles.